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About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at |http: //books .google .com/I •o' * > \ \ :r i^% ) 1 fROPERT y OF Jlkim. »»'7 A It T E S tCIENTIA VERITAS y THE PRINCESS} OR THE BEGUINE. BY LADY MORGAN, I I AUTHOR OF " O'DONNEL," &c. irv " She was one of those kind of nuns, an' please your honour, of which your I honour knows there are a good many in Tlanders^ which they let go loose." — " By thy description. Trim,** said my Uncle Toby, " I dare say she was a young ; . Beguine." j Tbistram Shakdt. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I- l^ONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. (successor to henry- colburn.) 1835. v.> ) ^ \ »*»■ Dip , 3\/. THE PRINCESS. CHAPTER I. THE OFISRA. Croiriez-vous que je reviens de Toperal La fete sefaisoit pour I'Abb^ Arnauld, qui n'en a pas vu, depuis Urbain ^ Y)*^^** ^^^^ ^^^^ ^ Rome. II en a ^te fort content ; je suis •' cG^rg^ des complimens de toute sa loge. Lettres de Madame de Scvigne, vol. iii. p. 1 0. A PAETY at the opera armnged for the special entertainment of the bishop of Angers, one of the most pious prelates of the Galliean chnreh^ and in the reign, too, of one of the most pious of the French kings ! A strange trait of manners this, and yet one only in a myriad, proving that hostUity to theatrical exhibitions formed no principle of the churches . original system. By the introduction of * mysteries,^ the clergy VOL. I. B 2 THE PRINCESS. laid the foundation for the revival of the drama — fallen into oblivion, with the other arts of civilization, on the destruction of the Roman empire. Dramatic entertainments also were long the favourite festivities in the pa- laces of Roman cardinals ; and even popes did not disdain to patronise the stage ; while the episcopal church of England, long after the restoration of the Stuarts,* showed its ab- horrence of puritanical republicanism by its in- dulgence to the drama, to which some of its members directly contributed. The private theatricals of Whitehall are on pleasant record. The duke'^s daughters, the ladies Mary and Anne (the future most or- thodox queens of England), played in the same pieces with Mesdames Knight, Davis, and Butler, and ^^ the cattel of that sort,^^ as Evelyn phrases it ; and the hinges chaplains and the churches prelates assisted with as little reserve as the French bishop of Angers showed in visiting Madame de Sevign^s box at the grand opera. Down to the middle of the long reign of George the Tliird, the- stage was considered as THE PRINCESS. 8 a subsidiary school for morals, and the opera as a royal academy of arts. Both escaped alike the reprobation and the interference of spiritual legislation ; and it was not until the downfal of the French church, in the summit of its power, wealth, and abuses, had given the alarm to all other churches, that an ultra-rigorous ob- servance of ceremonious forms, savouring more of Calvin than of Luther, decreed that, at the King's Theatre of London, the curtain should drop on Saturday nights precisely as the clock struck twelve. It mattered not what interests might be broken, what unities violated, what entrechats might be left uncut, what pirouettes suspended : the curfew-bell of the olden times tolled not with more effect than the prompter's bell knelled the parting Saturday night, and ushered in the dawn of the coming Sabbath. Sin and sanctity thus breiught into juxta-posi- tion even to an instant of time, the interdiction seems to have operated as an exciteme&t ; and Saturday night became a vogue, from the very anathema which sought to place it under the ban of public opinion. For nearly the quarter of a century afterwards, a box upon that night B % 4 THE PRINCESS. doubled its valae ; and the lessees found an in- demnity in this harvest for the losses incurred by those less productive representations which the churches censure had not rendered fashion- able. In the summer of 1833, there were added to the charm of fashion the more intrinsic attrac- tions of a rare combination of professional ex-> cellence. Genius of the highest order — Rossini, Mozart, and Bellini, — talents of the very first calibre — Pasta, Malibran, Rubini, Tambu- rini, and Taglioni — ruled, each at the head of their several departments, over the passions and tastes of society. Illustrators of arts which none can profess but the highly-organized (the " exclusives^' of nature^s own selection), they would have re- ceived from poetical antiquity the highest ho- nours: for what did antiquity possess — what have its sciences or its arts left, in poetry or mar- ble, superior to the dramatic pathos of the 'Me- dea,' or the enchanting graces of the ' Sylphide' ! It happened that the hottest Saturday night of the hot month of June, in the season alluded to, witnessed the closest-packed audience at THE PRINCESS. 5 the Eang^s Theotie, that any King^s Theatre at any season ever exhibited. Not a stall was vacant, not a seat in the pit was unoccupied ; while the boxes, teeming with beauty and re- splendent with dress, rendered the spectacle avant la seine as attractive as that upon it. Neither the sombre magnificence of the Scala, nor the fairy glories of San Carlos, are compa- rable, for general effect, to the spectacle pre- sented on such a night in the Opera-house of London. The theatres of Italy are antique temples; the theatres of Germany are dark dens ; but the London Opera-house, malgre its calico draperies and paltry decorations, is a Colosseum of living beauty and brilliancy un- matched in Europe. The cause of the unusual concourse, on this particular night, was the concentration of all the talents which had each separately filled the house on former representations — ^the brightest inspirations of Rossini and Bellini — ^the union of the high classical serta of Pasta, with the brilliant and pure buffa of Malibran, and the poetry of Taglioni's epic dance ! Every comer therefore was crowded, save 6 THE PRINCESS. aiilj that one box which, as in a microcosm, is wont to contain the very quintessentiality of the fashion and ton of London. This box, destined to be known to posterity by the style and title of " the Omnibus,'' lies in the pit tier, on the left or king's side of the house, and so close to the stage, that the Marquis of Montressor, its %m and founder, numbered from it, for a wager, every spangle on the glittering slipper of Fanny Elsler, as she paused from her tiptoe post^ to curtesy her gratitude for applause to the house in general, and to his lordship in particular. In the seventeenth century, the bel air of Paris took their station on the stage, within view of the audience, some in ball-dresses, some " en bandit ;" while those of the same class and rank, who happened to have been discovered in forgeries, or other frauds, then in vogue at the court, took refuge among the footmen. In the nineteenth century, the hel air of London resorted to the Onmibus — a joint-stock company assemblage of supreme ton and hypercriticism. The origin of this incorporation probably lay in a desire to judge of the points and steps of the THE PRINCESS. 7 priestesses of Terpsichore with the naked eye ; but, like many other foundations, it soon dero- gated from its primeval character, and became the vogue, without reference to any particular object. It was the fiishion to be a member of the Omni* bus, because the numbers were limited — ^because it enabled a man to cut his mother^s family box, to get rid of his wife's set, or to have a house of refuge against the necessity of occu- pying his own high-paid place in the box of gome autocratess of fashion, to which it is a dis- tinction to subscribe and a bore to be confined. The subscription-list of the Omnibus was always complete in its numbers, vacancies be- ing promptly filled, and , transferable tickets, though not strictly forbidden, difficult to be had. Usually, however, it remained empty till the close of the opera ; but it was de rtgueur that it should have its complement of connois- seurship by the first act of the ballet« The ^Cenerentola' and the 'Anna Bolena^ had exhausted the extremes of sensation, leaving no cool suspense between all that is exquisite in pleasure and in pain; and the Sylphide had already winged her airy flight up the chimney. n 8 THE PRINCESS. but the Omnibus was stfll unoccupied, except by the eternal Marquis Montressor, who, true to the first bar of the overture of the ballet, sat with his elbows resting on the front of the box, his chin upon his hands, his soul (tale quale) in his eyes, and his eyes on the " many-twin- kling feet^^ of some favourite odalisque of the evenmg. Uttering his hravaa^ "deep but not loud,^** he remained so absorbed, that even the opening of the box-door, its being shut with a violence that called forth the disapprobation of the pit, and the pouncing of a new-comer on the seat beside him, failed to withdraw his attention from a performance which he was seeing for the twenty-second time. Nothing in nature or in art could be more opposite than the members of this tSte-d-tSte. Lord Montressor was formed in the prodigality of nature as to the matSriel. His corpulency resisted ev^ry restraint of art (and none was spared) to shape it into symmetry. His coun- tenance resisted every attempt to mould it to any expression more decided than the languish- ing simper of a ci-devant jeune homme^ or the sneer of aristocratic morgue. High and hard THE PRINCESS. 9 liying had alone left its trace and tint on a face which afforded a broad field for the display of both ; and ^' bewigged,'' though not " rouged,'** at forty-six, his lordship exhibited one of the last remaining impersonations of the profligacy and ton which the then nearly-extinct court of Carlton-house had left behind it. The new-arrival, on the contrary, was a prime- of-life man, and of a totally different appear- ance. His tall, slight, undulating figure still retained- an air of youthM elasticity; but high temples, and a brow indented with the impres- sions of thought, denoted a longer acquaintance with the realities of life. Clusters of light chestnut curls were thrown off the forehead al- most to the back of a finely-formed head. A complexion pale to sickliness, fine but deep-set eyes, a restless and unquiet glance, a brow in perpetual movement, and an expression of mal- atse, clouding — almost distorting — a very intel- lectual countenance, — assigned Sir Frederick Mottram (in a moral sense at least) to the " uneasy classes^ of society. He was altogether a fine specimen of the Saxon race, of which a few only, in right of their b5 10 THE PRINCESS. wealth, sometimes find their way among the Nor- man gentry of the land. Though well dressed, he still wanted something of the air of &shion which was spread over the naturally vulgar form of the highly-descended Marquis, — some- thing of that conventional mystery, so difficult to define, and so unworthy of the effort to ana- lyse it : but he suppUed the deficiency by a characteristic nonchalance^ the result, perhaps, of apathy, or of ill health. He was near-sighted also, and looked as if he only saw the woiid through the medium of a clearing-glass. On entering the Omnibus, he flung himself on a seat, with his back against the partition of the neighbouring box, and turned from the audience ; but his eyes were not directed to the stage— they were closed against its brilliancy. After a few minutes, however, he took up an opera-glass, re- connoitred the. house, and throwing up ^' a look malign askance^^ at the opposite tier, he again suddenly withdrew his eyes, opened the libretto of the '' Norma,''^ and commenced reading that ode to the living Norma, whose poetry is so far beyond the usual strain of such composi- tions. THE PRINCESS. 11 It was not till Lord Montressor (whose bro- ther, Lord John, was the husband of Sir Fre* derick Mottram'*s only sister) had brayoed off his " Cynthia of the minute,'' and thrown himself back in his chair to repose his hands and eyes during the performance of the figurantes^ that he perceived the presence of the new spectator. The discovery gave to his vacant face a slight expression of astonishment. '* Hollo ! Mottram,'' he said, " you here ! cosa vara ! To think of you being anywhere but at St. Stephen's I Have you got a subscrip- tion, or did my brother John leave you his ticket? Poor fellow ! I know it is in the mar- ket." (Lord John had recently levanted to Paris.) His lordship's question was negatived in a tone expressive of as much disgust and contempt as a monosyllable could convey. ** You very rarely honour the opera with your presence now," continued Lord Montressor, yawning. ** Very," was the sulky reply. " Do you really never go to your own box, — that is, to Lady Frances's?" " Never." 12 THE PRINCESS. " You, too, who are such • a fanatico for music ! ^ " That perhaps is the reason/' " Why, they do keep up an infernal noise there. Since they have thrown Lady Frances's and the Princess of Schafienhausen's boxes into one, they have always a set of noisy boys about them — sucking senators, dandy guardsmen, and pert attaches. Devilish bad taste that — it would have sunk a woman in the good old times of the Regency! No man was qualified for service then under forty — ^just as in the French Chambers.'** Lord Montressor raised his glass, and fixing it at Lady Frances's box, he asked, " Who is that beau blondin peeping over your wife's shoulder?" " Don't know in the least." "Why, how the devil should you, with your back turned, and your eyes shut ! Oh, I see ; it is Cousin Claude Campbell — le petit page dCamour^ as the Princess calls him. Lady Frances has more of his services than their Royal High- nesses — I suppose, she gives him more sugar- plums ! Look at the little villain, nestling THE PRINCESS. 13 between Lady Frances and the Princess ! He is in waiting, too, this week : but the Duke, per- haps, is in the House. — I say, Mottram, will you dine with me on the twentieth ? I must have him — I mean the Duke : shall I send your name in the list?" " No." " What, not meet the Duke ! Par exemple ! You are not going to take office under the Whigs, are you ?" "No!" " Why won^t you meet his Royal Highness, then?" " Because I am engaged." . " Engaged ! Nonsense— that goes for nothing when one is invited to meet the royalties — Brava, brava, bravissima !" The return of the dancing deity, at whose shrine Lord Montressor worshipped, cut short his conunent on the etiquette of royal invita- tions; for she was cutting a pirouette imme- diately under his eye. He saw he was danced at ; and his idle garrulity gave place to the gra- tification of a vanity which was never idle. He nodded his consciousness of her implied homage 14 THE PRINCESS. to his judgment, and gave free scope to his rapturous connoisseurship. " Bravaj brava^ la petite Mimmie ! pas mal, la belle enfant ! That girl improves rapidly ; she wants only muscle — ^nothing but that. It may easily be acquired. Do you know, you may train a figure to anything? — may indeed — quite a science. 1^11 tell you how I manage with Mim- mie : I tie up her ankles in bootikins like a race* horse, make her steep her feet in arrow-root when she comes off the stage, and never allow her to sup on anything heavier than the wing of a gelinotte, which I import for her from Brussels. — Apropos to gelinottes and to Brussels— we had the Belgian business on in our House last night, so I bolted early. I have had enough of '* the happy effects'' of the protocol system ; they are abundantly exemplified in national bankruptcy and a standing army-^dcHiH you think so ?'' " No,'' " Why, you spoke the other night as if you did : you ridiculed Palmerston's * early settle- ment of the Belgico-Dutch question.' " THE PRINCESS. 15 Sir Frederick either did not, or would not hear this remark. "By the bye,'' continued Lord Montressor, "what have you been doing in your House to- night ; for it seems you sat this evening par extra-' ordinaire. Aubrey told me you got a mauling from one of the Irish Mimbersy one of your * ho- notirable friends in the dirty shirt.' Ha ! ha J ha ! You took nothing from the Paddies, you see, by your Relief vote ! We told you half-and-half men that long ago, but you would not beUeve us. — Brava, dirty Sal ! How she flounders and flounces about, poor fat thing ! " Do you know why she is called dirty Sal ? for, par parenthhe^ she's as fresh as a rose. It's be- cause she's put ofi* with all the cast dresses of the wardrobe — (Test une si bonne pate ! I remember her quite beautifrd. She was a mere child in D'Egville's time, wid Jit fortune in 'Za Belle Laitiire.'* She was then very near making head against Parisot — she was indeed ! but she fell early into fat. It was your wife, above all persons in the world, told me she was called dirty Sal. Claude Campbell told her. You know, I suppose, 16 THE PRINCESS. that he is a Utile prince de coulisse f I never miss him at a ripetition of a new ballet. A promising boy that — nothing like a yearns diplomacy at Vienna, to finish a Westminster boy. They say it was yon got him made an attachi^ and sent him away to get rid of him, because he was such a nuisance ! Always stumbling over him, like a French poodle or a footstool." " Then they say a confounded lie !" burst forth Sir Frederick Mottram vehemently, and throwing down the libretto, " I have no interest with the ministry ; and if I had, I should not exert it for such a whelp as that." " Yes, — ^he'^s just that — spoiled by the women. I hear he was recalled for riding at the public races in a tri-coloured jacket, while the Excel- lency, his chef, actually rode his own famous Principessa in orange silk — ^no joke that. But youVe not going, are you, before Taglioni has danced her pas seulf'' Sir Frederick had risen unconsciously ; every muscle was in movement, his whole frame tre- mulous with irascibility. " Oh I so, if you are going to your wife'^s box, I**ll go with you. I want to make my ex- .THE PRINCESS. 17 cuses to the Princess for not supping with her to-night C and he added significantly, " Je donne d souper^ myself. There is such a rage* for suppers on Saturday nights after the opera ! I wonder Sir Andrew does not attack it. Shall we go d"^ Sir Frederick resumed his seat, and throwing his arm on the box, and directing his attention to the divine dancing of Taglioni, replied, " I am not going to my wife^s box ; but pray donH let me interfere with you.*' '* I see you are out of sorts to-night. Mot- tram — all ajar. Aubrey told me that they had badgered you in the House into one of your fits of humour. You broke loose, lie said, in a fine style— quite Demosthenic — and were left on your legs in your second hour, when he came away." '' Which makes silence and a seat a great luxury," said Sir Frederick languidly, and resum- ing his old position." '* Yes, you have the air of being devilishly bored, just now." " Just now, I am," was the sharp reply. " A pleasant bear-garden your House of Com- 18 THE PRINCESS. mons,— the ' Reformed Defonned,'' as Lord Al- lington calls them ! and, whaf's worse, sach a set of vulgarians, whose acquaintance you are obliged to admit tmt^ as well as in the House ! You must be continually exposed to coming in contact with some talking blockhead." " I am/' said Sir Frederick, '* very mxufHx exposed.**' '^ Were I you,'' said Lord Montressor, point- ing his glass at the opposite side, '^ I would ciit dead—" '^ I should like it much," said Sir Frederick, with irrepressible petulance. " Well, I must go to the Belgian Princess, and make my excuse. Her German etiquette is so susceptible, you have no idea." Lord Montressor then rose, hurried on his fool's cap without its bells, and left the box as the curtain dropt on the first act of the ballet. Sir Frederick settled himself into a comer, in the fidl luxury df that solitude which it is pos- sible to enjoy even in an opera box. Bringing his glass to the proper focus and to a permanent position, he rivetted his entire attention on the interior of his wife's box ; for he had come to THE PRINCESS. 19 the opera that night from the House of Com* mons, for the purpose of watching the moye* ments of some of its oceupants. Lady Frances Mottram^ an epitome of Eng- lish female fashion, resembled in her look and air the beauties of the Whitehall galaxy of Charles the Second^s court. Fair^/ade, and lan- guishing, her dress, and full blonde tresses frisics au naturel, gave her the character n«der hinasetf^^ ' ^nd he seemed "^-«- Lord A ! ''^"^^ed by the coi- *he Marquis of Mo^^ "" *'' ^'^^ ^^^^er of ^ ha^:::-*::^-- His second W f---d,tofoUo? " /^' ^«' --^*h, *h« Princess of ScWff ! '"^""^ ' ^""^ *^ "^^^ ^ejawis and Bel '"^'' ^**'' ^er Rhenish *he tiro brothe ^ ^*^ *^'®^**' '^*'® Position of <^ependance o ^ ^^^'^ tempted them to ^^gg^ry. yjj Pi'eferable alternative to ^^ «ot stood • ^ ^^^^^^ birth of Miss Mottram ^^ ^ay ^f Lord John ; and a 28 THE PRINCESS. reputation of no equivocal character was not an impediment to the speculations of Lord Alfred. In both instances, institutions were, perhaps, more in fault than they. There was also present in the box, Colonel Winterbottam, the model of all fashionable gossips, past, present, and to come ; — a gentle and genteel representative of the led captains of less civilized times, and the devoted creato of Lord Aubrey, (a top-sawyer of fashion, whose dulness he amused and whose corks he drew.) For the rest, Colonel Winterbottam was one whom everybody knew and nobody cared for; and he conscientiously paid back society in the coin he received from it ; for he knew every- body and cared for—- nobody. ' Next to the Colonel sat Captain Levison, a light-hearted, light-headed, handsome young guardsman, who got rid of his burthensome vitality and unproductive activity as he best could ; and who now only dropped in to the opera from a breakfast at Norwood, in the hopes of an invitation to a supper at the Princess of Schaffenhausen''s. The descent of Lord Alfred from Lady Fran- THE PRINCESS. 29 ces'^s box was the topic ofdiscourse^ as the eyes of the party were turned up to observe the transit of the Princess herself. " There is my brother Montressor/' said Lord Alfred, offering his arm to the Durck- lauchtigste. " It is a great honour, I can tell you, her coming to see you^ Mrs. St. Leger. She says you were civil to her at Frankfort, somewl^ere.'" " Oh, yes !'' said Mrs. St. Leger, in an affected foreign accent ; " so I was. La Diite ! there is nothing so collet monti as the Diet at Frank- furt ; and when the Princess of Schaffenhausen pounced upon it, (nobody knew whence, car Me trnnba dea cieux^y there was a doubt which of the princesses it was; for the Schaf- fenhausens are like the Galhtzins, ^ comme s'il en pleuvait.'* So there was a question how she should be received in the society of la Di^te ; and the Austrian ambassador, as president, wrote home for instruction, before he would let lier into the Palais Taxis, or give her the honours of VAltesse. " Well, you know how slow the poor dear Au- lic council moves ! and, before their answer came, 30 THE PRINCESS. the Princess was oiT for England, and so was I. But I took such an efigouement for her ! She lent me one of her nice carriages all the time she stayed, and was so good-natured! in fact, I know her to be a grande et putssante dame. The Prince, her late husband, was one of those rich Belgic, German, Spanish princes, you know, like the De Lignes and the D'Arem- bourgs ; and the on dit goes that he le^ her all his wealth not entailed: — his vineyards touch dear Mettemich's.'^ " By Jove !'"* said Lord Alfred, rubbing his hands, ^^ that makes one^s mouth water. How I should Uke to drink her health in her own Johannisberg, in her castle on the Rhine. Be^ sides, she really is quite charming.^' " Yes,'' lisped Mrs. St. I^eger, " I knew she vfoxAA far furore in London— «he is so rich, and so odd, and dresses beyond everything; and then so very clever,— she speaks five languages, and paints like a professional artist.'' ^' Still there is something louche about her," said Mr. St. Leger. " She made a great sensa- tion at Frankfort, visited all the hospitals, left THE PRINCESS. 31 money for the Hospice des Ali6nS3y a&d for la Maison des Orphelines ; and pottered about the town with a Biguine^ a sort of sister of charity ; se fourrant partout^ as the bourgemestre said-^ for ' she not only visited the prisons, but the prisoners of state who had got up the rivolution manquSe of last year, la canaille! People thought that odd/' : " ' Charity covereth a multitude of sinS,' " said Colonel Winterbottam ; " and the Princess has a tolerable list to clothe, if report here speaks truth*^^ *' What sins ? venial or venal ?^ asked Lord Alfreds " German morals are not strait-laced," replied the Colonel. " As ours are," added Lord Allington, drily. " Oh I fot facility of divorce and lefirhand marriages — passe. But when it comes to a trifle of murder, — ^" continued Colonel Winterbottam, shaking his head and looking through his glass. " You don't mean that ?" said Lord Alfred, anxiously. 32 THE PRINCESS. " St. Leger might tell you, if he pleased,**' said the Colonel. St. Leger placed his finger on his lips with ^ mysterious air. " So, you are too diplomatic? — Well, then, the story goes, that she contrived to get rid of her first husband in order to marry the siBCond.**' " Bagatella r exclaimed Lord Allington. " Poignard, or prussic acid ?'' ask^d Captain Levison, drawing up his cravat. " She stopped his mouth with a handker- chief, after a smoking-bout,^ said the Co- lonel. " She had better have stopped it with damages, as we do in moral England,**' said Lord AlHngton. " But, after all," added Captain Levison, 5' there may not be a word of truth in the story, which may be aH got up by radical papers and whig journals. Her suppers are so very good !" " And if there were truth in it,'' said Lord Alfred, ^Hhese things depend so much upon circumstance ! — A fine woman energized by: THE PRINCESS. 83 passion ! — -jealousy, for instance — Eh I Ailing* ton ? jour duchess at Rome and her courier, to wit !'•* " Yes, hers was meridian blood : but a cold phlegmatic German ! a vrow killing her overfed grafy and with a halter for a stiletto *— Pah ! there's no poetry in that.'' " It was not a halter,'? , said the Colonel ; ** it was a fichu brodS^ which led to the discovery." " Un assasainat a la petite maitrea^se^'* said Mrs. St. Leger, tittering : " but, somehow, I don't think those things are so very much minded abroad." " No matter," said Lord Alfred. " She is a personage — an aristocrat, and will therefore be exposed to all sorts of calumnies here ; but she has had the most rapid and complete success of any foreigner since the beautiful Oallitzin, who turned our fathers' heads some thirty years ago." ^* Succea de vogtiCy'^ said Lord AUington, with whom it was notorious the Princess was no favourite. " I have seen so many of those c6 34 THE PRINCESS. ' complete successes' die out before the season was over !"*' . " You will find the Princess of Schaffenhausen won't wait for that," said Mr. St. Leger. " Be- fore you can telegraph her arriyal in one place, she is off to another; which makes it doubted by some whether she is the Princess — I mean, her Highness of "^ At that moment the Princess entered the box with the Marquis Montressor. She saluted on both her creamy cheeks the little chiffon of diplomacy, gave the ex-minister her hand to kiss, took her seat in the front, but with her back to the scene, and placed her elbow nearly in contact with the arm of her neighbour in the adjoining box, Sir Frederick Mottram. All present were known to her, or desirous of being so ; and she received their recognitions and pre- sentations rather with German formality than fo- reign courtesy ; but, after the first introduction, she fell into that ease and decision of manner which characterize women of the world all over the world. Her accent, when she spoke English, was foreign ; her voice, clear as the tinkling of TH£ PEINGESS. 35 a silver bell; and her quick, restless eye, un- assisted by a glass, reconnoitred -with rapidity the whole side of the house whit^h she had left. ^^ What a good box you have got, Madame St. Leger i I like to see you ex-excellences so well provided for.**' " We happen not to be provided for at all, thanks to our reforming ministry,**' said Mr. St* Leger. . " Mauvatse politique r said the Princess. ^' You English fight and pay better than any iiatM)n in the world ; but when you come to diplomatize, you are, ma foi! des /ranches ganaches I lA your England, you spend all in what you call secret service ; but an operarbox is worth all the police espionage in the world.'*' " Explain us that, belle Princesse^'' said Lord Allington, sneeringly. " Ah, mon Dieu ! I explain nothing, I^ understand nothing ; but mon esprit observateur has long discovered that there is * Quelq ues rapports secrets Entre le corps diplomatique £t celui des ballets.' jN^est'Ce pas^ Milord Montressor P 86 THE PRINCESS. Every one laughed at the reference: Lord Montressor looked pleased at the allusion. *^ The Princess is quite right,'' he said. ^^ An ambassador may do more business in his opera^box than in his cabinet. A con^- versation symphonized by thie notes of Meyer- beer is worth all the official notes in the world." '' It was found so at Milan^ in 1820,'' ob- served the Princess, " where words dropped in a box at the Scala led to the dungeons of Spiels- berg. Only make people talk, no matter about what, the dominant idea will come out. The old^no^eric* du Conciace,— the language being given to conceal thought — the volto sdolto, pen^ sieri stretti^ and other old political axioms, are worth nothing now. Une causerie de sofa vaut bien la question ordinaire et extraordinaire ; and an opera-box is the best of all secular confessionals— 'for those who know how to use it." " The true secret tribunal ! — eh. Princess ?" said the Ex-envoy. — "Have many of the foreign ministers boxes this season, Colonel ?" THE PRINCBSQ; 87 ^' All, I believe, except perhaps him of Belgium.'*' . *' And why * perhaps' ? ^ ^' Becaiise I suspect the whole salary allowed him by the revolutionary government of les braves Beiges would scarce pay for a box on the third tier.'' The Princess shrugged her shoulders, and observed, . " But what would you have of a gouvernement de circonstance ?" Or rather iCoccasifm^ said Lord AJDington ; for the four days at Brussels were but the three days of Paris at second-hand." . ^^ Yes, the brand came lighted from France," said Lord Alfred, . ^^ But the train was well laid to receive it in Belgium," said the Princess. " Ah ! those hard- headed Flemings ! You don't know them." "No matter," said Mr. St. Leger, "the thing won't work — can't go on at all." " The miracle is that it has gone on so long," said the Princess : " three years bien sonnis ! je rCtn r.evien$ pas,'*'' " Nor I," said Mr. St. Leger. " Do you 88 TH£ PRINCESS. knaw anything of the new people, Prin- cess ?'' ' ^' Do you ?^^ asked the Princess, significantly. "How should I!'' he replied, contemptu- ously. ^' £A, comment^'''* said the Princess, with a su- percilious curl upon her lip — ^^ comment vouleZ" vau8 que je lea connaisse f A government of lawyers, professors, doctors of law, and, for aught I know, of medicine— ate moins^ des Doc- trinairea^ There was a general smile at the warmth of this explosion. *' And yet. Princess,^' said Lord Allington, ^' these lawyers, professors, and doctors have made head against the most consanmiate states- men in Europe. They have taken their stand with the Talleyrands, the Mettemichs, the Faldis, the Palmerstons, and the Bolows.^^ " Incroyable ! " said the Princess ; " these creatures of yesterday, just dug up, with all the fresh clay about them, to compete with such men was out of all ordinary calculation.^^ " I remember,'' said Mr. St. Leger, " when I TH£ PRINCESS. 89 was in the Foreign Office in 1880, the Protocol No. ]. was despatched to the first provisional government, by Cartwright and Bresson. We thought the whole farce would have been over before our chargis could arrive at Brussels, or that the roturier cabinet would have taken an age to learn the rvdiments of their art. Not at all. In the rapport which came back immediately, it was said that ' La r^ponae ne se fit pas attendre ;'^ and Tielmaus met our men with an aplomb that was inconceivable.^ " What is the secret, Princess,'' said Lord AUington, '^ that men so new should have proved themselves so equal to cabinets so old ?'' " Because they are new," said the Princess with a smile difficult to interpret. " The thing won't hold another year," said Mr. St. Leger, dogmatically. " It ought not to hold," said the Princess; " for, by its new code, no woman can reign." '^ That is nothing to the purpose," said Lord AUington ; " women always reign — by influ- ence, if not by right. Every cabinet in Europe," he added, fixing his eyes on the Princess till 40 THE PRINCESS. she lowered hers beneath his glance, ^' has an ambasaadrice de poche^ thongh some are not so openly avowed as others.'' '^ Women are good missionaries,'' said the Princess, ^^ and worthy to preach la religion des row. *' They are the best of adventurers, because the boldest," said Lord Allington, pointedly; '^ and they always succeed in—" ...,*' blinding U trop clair-voyantj'* inter- rupted the Princess, carelessly. " Not always," said Lord Allington. ^^ Who is the Belgian minister here ?" asked Mrs. St. Leger. ^' Don't know at all," said the little Ex-envoy. '^ Haven!t the least idea," said the hereditary legislator, Lord Montressor. " A very able and spirituel person," said Lord Allington. *' Do you remember the Prince's mot last year, when a change was expected?" asked Colonel Winterbottam, eagerly. " Let's have it," said the Guardsman. " He is such a famous old fellow !" THE PRINCESS. 41 *^ Why, some quidnunc at the Travellerst' asked him whether Monsieur Van B or Monsieur Van C were the person expected from Brussels. * I hope it is Monsieur Van G ,' he said, ' car je ne le connais pas.'* " " Impayabkr said the Princess. " That prince was a great man for his day, but not for ours. Ecoutezy messieurs ! you must not put new wine into old bottles. — But, Milord Montressor^ whose is that great box you occupied to-night ? I should like to have it next season, if I should be here,'' " Impossible, Princess f It is reserved in perpetuity for the select — ^the elite.'" " What do you call the ^/i^e r " In the present instance, it means some cer- tain men, of a certain party, patrons of the opera ; but, generally, the term is applicable to the exclusives of London society, the flower of the aristocracy, or privileged classes. For instance ....'' '* Privilege ! why, all who have money ar^ privileged here, rCest-ce pas ?'' *' It should seem so,'' said Lord Allington, 4i2 THE PRINCESS. in a low tone, not caught by tlie insolent foreigner. " Is that Sare Chose — my friend Lady Franceses husband, of the privileged class ? for I saw him in the box pointing his glass at us. I thought he had been roturier^'^ " And so he is,'^ replied the Marquis," if, by Sir Chose^ you mean Sir Frederick Mottram ; and, as such, he is not exactly entitled to a place in our Omnibus ; but he is allied to two noble famiUea by marriage." "-^A, c*€st vrai! he is brother-in-law to ce pauvre Lord John, who has bolted, what you call — ^like that escroc Pomenars, qui ne voulait pas se laisser pendre. He is a duke's brother, I think.^ ^' He is naine,'' said Lord Montressor, coolly ; while the naivete, or the ignorance, of the Princess caused a general titter. " Poor John,^ said Lord Alfred, " has been hardly used by the newspapers ! That little ad- venture or misadventure of his at Newmarket is a thing of frequent occurrence in the sporting world,-— of royal precedent, in fact — only he happens to have been a Uttle pushed for pay- ment, before he had time to look about him.^ THE PRINCESS. 4d " Well,'' said the Princess, " he has both time and space now ; for I see by the papers that he is at Brussels. That city is the maison de rifuge de vous autres -4ng-/at5,*— of the MU^-^ entendeZ'Vous ?'' '^Not now,'' said Mr. St. Leger. "No English of respectability will stay at Brussels till the House of Nassau return." " And if that doesn't soon occur, the Belgian commerce will be rained— there will at least be an end of Antwerp," said Lord Montressor. *' Your ministers do not seem to know their own mind," said the Princess : the truth, indeed, is, that, all things considered^ Belgium has the best of the bargain in this delay. But Lord Palmerston should remember that, in the ndean while, the poor English have nowhere to hide their head ; and at the rate you are going on, ma foi^ you will all want reftige somewhere, —at least you ^lYc, who must soon work for your pain quotidieny tout camme Us autre s ' ■ " ** What can you do for your bread, Colonel ?" said Mrs, St. Leger. "My Lord Aubrey says I make punch ex- cellently. -it 4i THE PRINCESS. "And play it too,'' said Lord AUington, in an under tone. " I shall set up a coffee-house/' said Lord Montressor ; ^' and I'll take you, Allington, for my waiter." " Why not maitre du ballet^ milord ?" said the Princess : . " on a toujours du goUt pour son prt-^ mier metier^ a I might do worse," replied the peer, con- ceitedly : " and so, Allington, you must be con- tent to be my call-boy." " Thank you," said Lord Allington, leaning his chin on his cane ; ^' but I have taken my vocation already. I have a fatnous crossing in my eye ; I won't tell where, though — ^some of you will take it else." " From Crocky's to Jermjm-street ?" asked the Guardsman eagerly. " No, no," said the Princess ; " you must not escamoter his gutter ; there will always be dirty work enough for yon all." " What shall we make of there ?" said Mrs. St. Leger, pointing with her glass to an ex-official in the pit, who had been instrumental in getting her husband his appointment. THE PRINCESS. 45 " A climbing-boy ; and let his motto be ' High and dirty/ '' said the Princess. " Princess f said Lrord AUington, e^dently ^spleased with the sarcastic foreigner, " I often wonder how it is, that, being as you are but two months in London, you know every- -thing about every one,'* *' MSdiocre et rampant,'^ said the Princess, making at the same time a sign to Lady -Frances, who was in clpse colloquy with her little cousin in the opposite box — ^^ Midiocre et rampant^ et Fon arrive d tout^ *' You,**' said Lord Allington^, pointedly, " are notoriously neither one nor the other.**' " Well, then, I am rich and insolent," she added carelessly — " II y a tant de moyens pour parvenir!^ " There is something in that,'' said Lord Al- lington. " Pray," said the Colonel, as he followed the direction of the Princess's eyes, " what does the great commoner think of that little cousin al- ways fluttering about his wtfe ?" " J/a/oi," said the Princess, "it is an affair of life and death. Miladi Frances must either 46 THE PRINCESS. die of ennui, or dissipate it with le petit page jti w que voila, ^^ You may see him with her in the Park as regularly as her poodle,'' said Colonel Winter- bottam. *' Yes, they always remind one of Rubens's great picture of Lady Arundel,'' said Lord Al- lington, " catalogued * Lady, dwarf, and dog.' 7 '^ Que vouleZ'Vous f elle meurt d'^ennui^ added the Princess, yawning. " It is a case of felony ; her husband ought to be tried for his life. Ah ! you laugh, but a mart ffrognard is worse than a tertian ague." " Worse indeed," said Lord Allington, " for it is a quotidian. Only jbhink of uxoricide being brought home to the most moral man in England, and a coroner's inquest sitting on the beautiftil body of Lady Frances Mottram, and bringing in a verdict of — ^ Died by the visitation of her husband's ill-humour.' " " Well," said Colonel Winterbottam, " I though the great commoner too much occupied with the affairs of the nation, to find leisure for minding his own." " A man has always time to ennuyer his wife," said the Princess. THE PRINCESS. 47 " And a wife has not always the means of getting rid of a husband," said Lord AUington — " at least, in this country." Every one remained silent, stunned by the hardihood of the remark. The Princess, how- eyer, did not acknowledge the epigram, and was occupied in attending to the ballet, and ap« plauding Taglioni, with exclamations evidently of rapturous admiration. " What studies," she said, " for painting and poetry ! Greek sculpture wanted these subjects of grace in movement." " Yes," said Lord AUington, ** movement, in aU its power, is a modem discovery." " Not altogether," said the Princess ; " it is a modem discovery for the mass, but was always known to the few. When things come to be executed, ' no secrecy comparable to celerity,' says one of your few philosophical statesmen : the * celerity' of Bacon, in the sixteenth cen- tury, was the movement of the nineteenth." '* Talking of statesmen," said Colonel Win- terbottam, who always kept up a running fire of words upon system (the conversation Sharp of his own world of gossiping) — " Talking 48 THE PRINCESS* of great statesmen, I do assure you there are yerj odd reports afloat about Mottram : some think all is not right in the upper story — Lord Aubrey says, that all half-and-half-men must be half mad !'' " It appears that Aubrey keeps all his bright things for you,'' said Lord AUington. " Be that as it may,'' continued the Colonel, " there are really all sorts of reports abroad. Some say, Mottram is going to join the Whigs — and his speech the other night looks like it ; others, that he is disgusted with all parties, and intends to retire from public life, and write the history of his own times ; — you know he has a taste for literature, and the arts, and all that kind of thing. But all agree that, in spite of his coal-mines and his steam-engines, he is cleared out. Some say, Mottram Hall must come to the hammer; others, that the new house on Carlton-terrace is to be let for three years ; and that the family goes to the Continent, to join the forlorn-hope at Rome and Naples, and try to pull up." " That comes of men frittering away their THE PRINCESS. 49 fortunes/' said Lord AUington, " in paying their tradesmen's bills.'' At that moment there was heard a rustling iti the adjoining box, and the door clapped with violence. The Princess now arose, and threw round a glance at the splendid circle. Beauty and brilliancy, sounds to intoxicate, and sights to dazzle, combined and concentrated all that nature and art, wealth and taste, can produce as the last result of refined civilization. The scene was the fairy forest of the 'Sylphide;' the moment, when the whole corps de ballet^ the attendant nymphs, rush down the stage, in the flush of youth, grace, and movement, realizing so much poetry by means so mechanical. What a scene of enchantment to the specta- tor ! What an arena of labour, pain, privation, and effort to the actor ! What an infinity of social evil, unseen, unthought of, forms the basis of the overgrown wealth necessary to purchase such a combination — a combination too, of which a few, even among the favoured children of chance and fortune, can really appreciate the unquestioned excellence. And is this all that money can bestow, or the magic of art pro- TOL. I. D 50 THE PRINCESS. dace for the gratification of sense ? Alas for humanity ! in all aspects little ; in none so little as in that of its pleasures ! While thoughts passed, or, from the expres- sion of her countenance, might be supposed to pass, through the Princesses mind, a tiny repeater, set in her bracelet, struck twelve; and the curtain fell, with the wings of the Sylphide. — Everybody started up. " Are you orthodox, you English ?'' she said, the expression of her face again changing to a look of sarcastic pleasantry, as she observed the audience thinning rapidly. '^ But it seems your orthodoxy does not meddle with your suppers after the opera. Will you all therefore come to my media-noche^ in St. Jameses Square P^ " It would be heterodox indeed," said Lord Alfred, " to refuse that : one of the good re- sults of shortening the opera on Saturdays, is the revival of suppers.'^ Lord Allington now secured the arm of Mrs. St. Leger, who drew back to give precedence to the Princess. Madame Schaffenhausen took that of Lord Montressor ; and flanked by Lord Alfred, and pioneered by Colonel Winterbot- THE PRINCESS. 51 tarn, they stdvanced through the dense and brilliant crowd to the Round-room. Captain Levison, who led the van, gave the order for the Princesses carriage by her high-sounding title, and fixed the attention of the multitude upon her distinguished person. ** The Princess of Schaffenhausen's carriage I" roared out the attendant at the head of the stairs. There was a rush and a press. " Is she a raal princess. Lady Dogherty?" asked a strange voice, proceeding from a strange group which followed close^ in the Princesses wake. The question was overheard by Madame Schaffenhausen. ^ Dams ce tnot'ld je reconnais mon sang,'*'' she quoted laughingly, " for I have some drops of Iridi blood in my veins !"" " Yes,'' said Lord Allington, " the siege of Limerick did the state of Austria some service ; and Dick Talbot's reply to Louis XIV. might bear a pretty general application." * * Louis XIV. observiDg the Duke of Tyrconnel to re*- semble himself, remarked conceitedly, ** Madame voire mire a iti ct notre cour, Monsieur le Doc ?" '* Non, Sire,*' he replied ; " mais mon pere y a itir D 2 52 THE PRINCESS. At that moment the Princess was fixed t6 the spot by the pressure of a foot treading on the end of her mantilla. She looked round with something more than curiosity. The scep- tical inquirer as to the authenticity of her rank bowed low : he was to all appearance a distressed gentleman, or at least a gentleman in distress, to the uttermost infliction of heat, weariness, and a false position. For the last ten minutes he had been dragged, pinched, nudged, and forced forward by two fair companions, in spite of a bulk of person ill suited to thread the mazes of the Round-room. Sometimes yielding, sometimes resisting the im- petus of their movements, he vainly exclaimed, ^' Aisy now, Lady Dixon, dear ! the more haste the worse speed. Let go my arrum, Lady Dog^ herty, honey ! till I get at my hankercher ; musha i but it^s horrid hot ; Fm choking alive with the drowth." The Lady Dixon thus apostroplused on his right, was long, lean, and loaded with the fnourning drapery of widowhood. The Lady Dogherty thus solicited on his left, was stout, broad, and protuberant; in dress, an illustra- THE PRINCESS. 5^ tion of Shakspeare^s * sun in flame-coloured taffeta^; and in undress, an outrage on the minor morals of the decent strait-laced toilet of the revived Gothic mode. Her release of the Princess's mantilla was followed by an emphatic apology, which was listened to with an intensity of stare so pro- tracted as to verge on the very confines of ill-breeding or ridicule ; until the supercilious foreigner, hurried on by Colonel Winterbottam, relaxed her gaze, and left the eloquent apologist in the midst of her unfinished sentence. '^ What originals!'' said Lord Montressor, laughing. " Quelles horreurs /" said Mrs. St. Leger. " What very odd people come to the opera since the Reform Bill passed !" observed Lord Alfreds " Very," ^aid Colonel Winterbottam. " But that is a ,well-known Irish group from Brighton. The Princess's friend (for it must come to that) was called Lady Toe Dogherty, and gets on in society by treading upon people's feet, and by calUng the next day to make her apologies, and to obtain perhaps a bowing acquaintance by the 54 THE PRINCESS. same movement. Her intrigaes to get to the Pavilion were very amusing.''^ ** Winterbottam, you know everybody and everything: His a privilege to be piloted by yon,^ said Lord Montressor, sneeringly. ^^ V eclair eur du beau mokdt^ said the Prin- cess, laughing, bnt still looking back at the Doghettys with renewed curiosity. ^^ Oh ! but that woman is no joke,*" said the Colonel : ^^ she puts me in a fever ; I thought I had left her pUmtit at Brighton, and here she is.'' '' The Princess of Schaffenhausen's carriage stops the way,'' was now re-echoed from below ; and every head turned round at the announce- ment. The Princess passed on, and every eye followed her transit. Brighter forms and younger beauties squeezed and glided past un- heeded ; but the Princess was the queen of the season ; and the eye of fitshion followed her meteor course with the same ardour of interest as that with which science gazes on the un- calculated movements of some newly-discovered planet. The sudden and brilliant appearance of the THE PRINCESS. 55 Princess of Schaffenhausen in the liigh circles of London, ia the very heart of a season, in which social pleasure and political party had assumed an intensity and a development hitherto un* known in the domestic history of the country, had excited a considerable sensation in all its coteries, and a considerable interest in its highest and most ^scclusive cliques. At the moment of I her arrival, a memorable revolution had been effected, which, in changing the character of the government,, had overthrown the routine sys^ tems of the *' old political post-horses ;^ and by rendering their customary agencies inapplicable, had thrown parties upon a course of experi- ments and expedients in search of new points d'appui^ for the conservation of aristocratic « power, and for successfully resisting the en- croachments of popular claims. Among these, the subtilty and finesse of female agency, and its corrupting influence at once over the passions and the mind, had been largely called on; and the system which marked the decline of absolute monarchy in France, and hastened the ruin of the restored dynasty of the Stuarts in England, was again revived, to avert 56 THE PRINCESS^ the downfal of a discomfited oligarchy. Differ* ent as were the states of society, and the ob^ jects to which intrigue was directed, still a parallel might be drawn between the cabinets of Versailles and of Whitehall, and the political coteries of present times ; in each of which, pleasure and intrigue, froUc and faction, were so intimately blended as to bUnd the most observ- ing, and serve the purposes of the most wily. The threatened loss of one eminent femme d^etaty which had been considered as a political calamity by the party for whom she laboured, seemed to be anticipated and indemnified by the arrival of another ; and though the Princess of Schaffenhausen had not yet presented her note verbale^ nor made conmiunication of any pro- tocole de conference — ^though she had delivered no credentials as one of the many plenipotentiaries de quenouille from the five great powers — still the idea gained ground that she was destined to succeed to the vacated appointment, and awaited her own good time for announcing her mission. Younger, handsomer, more original, and, above all, more awakened to the changes impressed upon Eujropean society, she threw her dull but THE PRINCESS. 57 zealous colleagues into shade.. She took the tone of the times with an open boldness unknown to her astute predecessor ; and gave out lights that bewildered the councils of the set, who some- times doubted whether she was in jest or earnest, or whether the priestess of absolute power was not the agent of ultra-liberalism. She laughed at the old method of cyphers and insinuation, of taking thought by surprise, and mystifying the plainest transactions — ^the thread- bare usages of the worn-out cabinets of Europe ! She spoke out that which others only whispered, and, keeping no terms with innovation, sometimes rendered her outres doctrines fearful even to those most inclined to propagate and to practise them. Her mots had already passed into maxims, her aphorisms into proverbs ; and though some were startled by her declarations, that " la meilleure dtplamatte est cTaller droit son chemin^'''* and that " rhomme le plus franc est le plusfn^'*'^ still she was adopted by the hfgh party, as the child and champion of ultra-legitimacy ; while the prestige of her fashion rendered her suspected •mission palatable even to the moderate. The supposed disciple of the school of Metter- D 5 58 THE PRINCESS. • nich was the more readily forgiven for the sake of her cook, who was of the school of Careme. Dinners of the most exquisite science on Mon* days ; sappers on Saturdays after ihe opera, like those of Louis XIV. after his jours maigresy from which she named them ; and fantastic bah costumes^ which she irhimsically called her JTer- mess^ (after the Dutch Ramadan of that name,) confirmed her vogue beyond the influence of rumour to shake it. The Princess, too, if not a woman of genius, was of great and versatile talent, ---a fine musi- cian, an able linguist, and an artist of suffi- cient eminence to turn an accomplishment into a profession, should the rapid changes of the times, and the loss of her Belgian estates, ever drive her upon living by the exertion of her own high endowments. In a word, she was one to take the world unawares ; and she had already made herself mistress of the season^s vogue, before its patrons were conscious of her attack. Th« can- didates for ton at any price, had canvassed her suffrage, and submitted to any humiliation to be enrolled among her guests. Her pohtical ad- mirers pinned their faith on h^ letters of pre- THE PRINCESS. 59 sentation from foreign ministers (chiefly Ger* man), written in the usual style, in which more was insinuated than expressed ; and report had assigned her a position, before caution had insti-^ tuted an inquiry, or prudence suggested a doubt as to her claims. Wealth, which in England purchases the smile of insolent rank for coarse vulgarity, and places royalty itself at the table of the ambitious pie* beian- wealth, judiciously distributed, had pro- cured golden opinions for the patroness of arts, the contributor to public charities, and the hos- pitable Amphitryon of the most scientific table in London ; and the swords of half the younger brotherhood of the English aristocracy were ready " to start from their scabbards,*" to defend the eccentricities of one who was possessed of the means of converting their high-bom pauperism into princely independence. It was rumoured that she had written a Com- mentary on Faust, a perfect system of meta- physical transcendentals and of religious mysti- cism. An earl assiduously courted her for the honour of translating it; a duchess canvassed the privilege of illustrating its pages ; and a 60 THE PRINCESS. eouatess looked forward to a literary reputa- tion, to be founded on her gracious permission to undertake the functions of her English edi* tor ; while many of the &shionable party and publishers of the day laid their power of puf- fing and parade of criticism at her feet ; soli- cited her portrait for their " books of beauty j**^ and ^^ magazines of ton ;'*'' announced her " con- tributions^'* to their rival albums and annuals with selfrgratulations, and asserted the supre- macy of her talents and her revenues over those of all other female writers of the age. Still the Princess, with all her accessories, was rather a meteor than a fixed star ; more dazzling than appreciated, more imagined than under- stood. What she appeared was known even to the editors of newspapers, and to the report- ers for second-rate fashionable journals ; what she really might be, had hardly yet been ques- tioned by her most intimate associates. From her first arrival in England, the Prin- cess had formed part of a coterie, of which Lady Frances Mottram was a distinguished member. A sudden and very German friend- ship had been struck up between these two THE PRINCESS. 61 persons ; the last, by their respective characters, to be suspected of assimilation. The incon^ gruity was too startling not to be assigned by the world to some arriire pens^e of the clever, meddling foreigner; and the motive attributed was the bringing back Sir Frederick Mottram to a fold, from which his enemies and his friends equally supposed him to be straying. Sir Frederick was well worth preserving. The arduous statesman and brilliant senator was gifted with talents which made him an object of consideration with all parties. He, however, whom Pitt had admired in his boyhood, and Canning praised while he was yet winning prizes in the schools of Oxford, was still wanting in that fixity of principle, that political aplomb^ which, though often the result of an opacity of mind placing it beyond the reach of chapge, or a hardness of feeling inaccessible to the beauty of moral truth, is still indispensable to political consideration. Sir Frederick Mottram's intellects were of too high an order to resist altogether the influence of new lights, and to push perseverance into obsti- nacy in error. But the great master-mover of 62 THE PRINCESS. mind, volition, was wanting ; and placed by cir- cnmstances in the training of a particular party, he oscillated between temperament and opinion. The disciple of conservatism voted for Catholic emancipation ; and was accused of giving a blow to the constitution, even while he advocated its inviolability. Sir Frederick Mottram was also a nervous and sensitive man, at once shy and impas- sioned. There were peculiarities in his position, which tended to render him the victim of a look, the martyr of a sneer ; and when the gossiping of the Carlton Club had bruited the imputed designs of the Princess in his behalf, his pride and principles alike took the alarm. Even before he had seen her, he had learned to hate, with all the energy of wounded and im- placable self-love, this fashionable and diploma- tic sibyl; and her sudden intimacy with his wife was therefore at once suspicious and distasteM to him ; although it by no means followed that this intimacy could directly influence himself. The life he had led with Lady Frances during six months of the year, seldom permitted their association. Lady Frances lived with a coterie THE PRINCESS. 63 of ultra-fashion and ultra-politics : Sir Frederick lived in parliament and in the clubs : and those whom God had joined, and no man was to put asunder, seldom met, except by particular ap- pointment ; and never &om any desire to meet more frequently than the exigencies of society absolutely required. Their mariage de conve- nances the barter of rank for wealth, had in twelve years'* union, produced no reciprocal feel- ings. Her morgue and insensibility, and his .passionate sensitiveness and imaginative tastes, rendered compatibility impossible ; and never coming together but to disagree, nor parting but in dispute, she had possibly sought the Prin- cesses acquaintance purposely to annoy him. On the evening alreadynoted, a singular chance had placed the Princess almost in personal con- tact with Sir Frederick Mottram, by the conti- guity of the boxes they respectively occupied, during the performance of the * Sylphide' ; and the sarcasms levelled by the foreign aristocrat against the birth and principles of the English parvenu^ confirmed an aversion which hitherto had been more a prejudice, than* a sentiment sanctioned by reflection and avowed by reason. 64 THE PRINCESS. CHAPTER II. CABLTON-TEBHACE. A SULTRY summer^g day, which had called forth the brilliant butterflies of fashion to swarm over the glittering waters of the Thames, had been followed by a heavy breathless evening, which had not prevented the same showy in- jects from swarming to the heated circles of the opera-house. A deluge of rain, the usual con- comitant of this state of the London atmosphere, had conunenced towards the close of the per- formance, and incommoded the beau monde at their departure, by falling between the carriages " and their nobility ;" while it detained the more plebeian portion of the audience under the arcades, in long and patient observance of the large, frequent, and pattering drops. The deep roUing thunder, mingling with the shrill calls of link-boys, for numbered vehicles, and " coach THE PRINCESS. 65 to the city !'^ outroared the more aristocratic demands for carriages decorated with half the ancient names of English history, and wholly overpowered the distant responses of drenched lackies and sulky coachmen. " Lady Frances Mottram'^s carriage stops the way !*" had been several times repeated in im- patient and remonstrating vociferation, before a faded dowager of rank had descended the stairs, supported by a muffled member of an old regime of fashion, which had once made such duties im- perative. She was followed by Lady Frances Mottram, who dashed forward upon the arm of an elegant boy (her vis-cL-vis in the box)* A " by-by'' and an *' a rivederla*'' hastily ex- changed, the young cavalier returned to the Round-room ; and the footman gave the word to " Lady Di CampbelPs, Berkeley-square." As the carriage drove off, a person capped and cloaked beyond the reach of recognition, burst through the crowd, and rushing over the gutters, and dodging through the maze of hur- rying carriages (in utter neglect of bas-d-jour, and shoes almost as thin), strided along Pall Mall, and rang at the fashionably unknockered 66 THE PRINCESS. door of one of the most magniiicent mansions of Garlton-terrace. The architectural yestibnle of the patrician edifice, though wrapt in silence, was brilliantly illuminated. The master. Sir Frederick Mot* tram, passed rapidly through it, to a room equal- ly silent, which was lighted by a Grecian lamp of purest alabaster, suspended from its gilt and sculptured ceiling. A pair of dim wax-candles had evidently shed their ^^ pale and ine£fectual lights^ for some time over a marble table covered with piles of parliamentary papers, books and manuscripts-*the lumber of public business and of private study. This room was the working cabinet of the legislator ; the sole domestic retreat of the pri- vate man ; the sanctum of the man of letters and of art. Books, busts, pictures, the relics of the two great epochs of human history (the antique and middle ages), were here collected in unsparing profusion ; and, with the more ser- viceable details of luxury and magnificence de- dicated to the ease and comfort of the body, presented to the imagination a strange contrast with the homely-wainscoted parlour, in which - * THE PRINCESS. 67 Swift sought the Premier of the Augustan age of England, and (as he wrote to Stella) hung up his hat on a peg in the wall on entering : the contrast between the minds of the men was still more striking. The perturbation of spirit and petulance of step of the lord of this beautiful apartment, as he entered, were strangely at odds with the tranquil genius of the spot. He flung his drenched cloak on a divan of purple velvet worthy of a Turkish seraglio ; and his cap on a bronze tripod that might have stood in the villa of Cicero. He slipped his feet into silken slippers worked in the looms of Persia; and flinging himself into an arm-chair devised by luxury and executed by taste, he opened a book, which he had marked on the night before, for some interest in its pages, and some desire to return to them. But he brought no mind to its perusal ; no power of attention to its subject. Laying down again the volume, he listened as if in impatient expectation ; all however was silent, and he again resumed his reading. The buhl pendule on the chimney-piece struck one, chim- 68 THE PRINCESS^ ing forth the quaint old air of ^^ Charmante Gabrielle^ the melody of times when men made love to psalm-tmies. Sir Frederick cast a glance at the time-piece, and flinging down for a second time the book, walked to the window of the veranda, which opened on the park« The rain had called forth the thousand odours of the exotics which filled it. The refreshed but genial air acting on his fevered brow like the soft warmth of a tepid bath on the wearied limbs of the traveller, he stepped forth and threw his arms over the balustrade upon the terrace. It occupied the precise site where the Duchess of Cleveland had flirted from her bal- cony with Charles the Second, while De Gram- mont and St. Evremond paired off, as men who knew the world— the one to feed his sub- jects in the ponds, the other to read his last Madrigal to Mademoiselle Temple. The moon shining forth on the retreat of the heavy and massive clouds which had obscured the night, illimiinated the towers of Westminster Abbey, the architectural miracles of the fifteenth century, as they rose over the dense masses of foliage THE PRINCESS. 69 which mimicked the broad outline of forest sce- nery. In front, and partially seen through the trees, the broken waters of the rippling lake re- flected the moonbeams in a thousand scattered and sparkling rays. The whole was an illusion, recalling distant times and distant regions ; but what an illusion ! in the heart of a great city, and at that hour and season, — the carnival of English fashion, the vigil of English pleasures and dissipation ! The scene was one to have charmed the coldest imagination ; but it now failed to touch the warmest. Sir Frederick dragged forward the curtains with an impetuous hand, and shut it out, as he uttered an audible expression of disgust. There is a certain irritability of feel- ing, a disease of humour, that renders the calm of nature and the tranquillity of externals a personal insult. He again took up his book — read — strided across his 'room — listened, — but heard only the distant roll of carriages, and the ticking of the pendule. Le bon Rot Dagobert chimed the second hour after midnight; and he now sat down to his writing-desk, and threw off 70 THE PRINCESS. the following hot proof-impresBion of his agitatr ed mind : — ^' TO THE LADY FRANCES MOTTRAM. " Two o'clock A. M. " You left me at the opera this evening raxder the impression that, after you had set down your aunt in Berkeley-square, you were to return im- mediately to your own house, — observe, for the first time, for many weeks, before daylight. Your promise was an evasion; and you have added deception to disobedience. I take it for granted^ you counted on my indifference to your move- ments^ founded on your own carelessness to my feelings and wishes ; bui that indifference must stop short of dishonour. You are now sharing in the orgies of a woman who has been cha- racterised in her political career, as an ^^In- trigante par goUitj par metier^ ei par besoin ;"''* and who is as notorious for her vices, as dis- tinguished by the misuse of talents,, which ren- der her a female Mephistopheles. ^' But why should I write this to you ? In a word, and to the point ; (for I am too ill and too weary to wait up any longer ; and I set off THE PRINCESS- 71 by appointment at seven, to my poor sister Lady John^s cottage, and shall not return till Monday:) I command you to break off this absurd and disgracefiil alliance without Airther equivocation or delay. I know the Princess dines here to-day ; for I see her name, ax^com- panied by others whom I despise and detest, on the list left on my table by Wilson. I will not outrage the usages, nor even the abuses of hospitality, by forcing you to put her off; but, remember, she enters my house for the last time, or I never enter it again as long as you remain its mistress. " Fbedbbick Mottbam." ^' P. S. I insist on Emilius being sent back early to-morrow morning to Dr. Morrison's. The injury done to that unfortunate boy by bringing him home is incalculable, both to his mind and to his health. He shall not be the victim of an indulgence which has more of folly in it than of fondness. I shall write to Dr« M. to forbid his sending him here any more with- out my express and written permission. ** Once more, with respect to this Madame Schaffenhausen, I am utterly free from all per- 72 THE PRINCESS. 8onal prejudice ; for I have never met her ; and should scarcely know her, were it not for the affectation of her dress and gesture : but that suffices. " P. M;' The writing of this angry and indignant letter removed a weight of bitter and choking sensa- tion : but it alluded only to one among many causes of deep-seated irritation ; and he folded, directed, and sealed it, with the same petulance with which it was written* He then rang the bell to send it to his wife^s dressing-room, but rang in vain. He rang a second time with in- creasing violence ; and no one answered. The third time, the silken rope remained in his hand. The door then opened; and he was on the point of bursting forth in a fit of angry inquiry, when the figure that appeared in the opening checked his utterance, and gave a change to the whole course of his humour. In all the range of possibilities, no fonn less appropriate could have presented itself, at such an hour, in such a place, and to such a person. It was that of a man tall and gaunt, ragged and grotesque in his dress. A purple jacket, ohce THE PRINCESS, 73 ^lendld, (the Mottram livery,) was dragged upon shoulders of such disproportionate dimen- sions, that the tight and torn sleeves terminated hut a little below the elbow. The nether-dress, of buckskin, left a space between the old Wel- lington boot and the brawny knee, which a worsted stocking scarcely covered. A black stock, dandily put on, gave a military cast to a broad, florid face, as expressive of self-conceit as a passing emotion of timidity would allow. A rough, shock head was drawn up to serve as an attempt at an attitude; and while one hand held firmly by the lock of the door, the other less firmly grasped a postilion^s cap, which presently fell with weight upon the floor, and lay without an attempt being made to pick it up. A deprecating smile played upon the uncouth, laughable face ; and the whole man stood an epitome of self-possession, dashed with an agitating desire to produce an effect, which, to one acquainted with the true physio- gnomic indications of the unadulterated Mile- sian race, would have led at once to the convic- tion that the personage was an Irishman. After the stare, the silence, and the amaze- VOL. I. E 74 THE PRINCESS* ment of a folly elapsed minnte, Sir Frederick, ia a sharp and startling voice, asked — " Who are you, pray ?"*' He was answered in a subdued brogue, and Anglo-Irish mincing tone— '* Is it me, plaze your honor ? It's what I bees, the boy about the pleece, Sir Frederick — of coorse, sir — ^ '^ What place P"" " ThiB coort-yard, Sir Frederick ; that is, the steebles, and your honor's offices. You know yourself, sir.*" " Oh ! a helper in the stables ?'' " Not at all, axing your honor's pardon," he replied conceitedly, and drawing up his stock ; " but does a turn by way of interteenment, till I gets into pleece, and to oblige your honor ; and hopes you're well. Sir Frederick — long life to you^ and to Colonel Vere, and the Could- strames !'* " What brings you here ?"*' said Sir Frederick, with some amazement and a Uttle suspicion. "What brings me here, plaze your honor? Why, what but to obligate Mr, Watkins, the porther, and sleep in his aisy chair ; and minds THE PRINCESS. 7^ the dure, till it^s what he comes in, which soon he will, plaze God— of coorse, Sir Frederick — '*'' " Ho ! the porter is out, then, and has left you in care of the house ?" " He has ; and 1 ^d do more nor that for Mr. Watkins without fee or reward, and for your- self too. Sir Frederick: can I do anything for your honor now, sir?'' And he advanced with an easy and gradually disengaged air towards the divan, shaking out and folding up the cloak, which he threw over his arm ; and then drew up, as if for farther orders. " Send the house-steward to me, and lay down that cloak !*" " He is gone to bed, your honor. And in respect of the cloak——'' G^J^g i* down.) " Then send me the groom of the chambers," said Sir Frederick, impatiently. '^ Mr. Elhson is out at a party, with her ladyship's lady's-maid, Sir Frederick— but of coorse will be soon in." *' Humph ! So. Then send me the footm^en,— Lady Frances's page — ^the butler, — any one." " The two footmen, sir, bees out with her leedyship's carridge; and the butler's at his E 2 76 THE PRINCESS, country-hous^; and th'' under butler is gone with a coach for Ma^m^selle ; and Master Francis is in bed, with a could in his hid, poor little cratur i"" Sir Frederick thus learned that his house was abandoned by all his numerous train of servants, and actually left, at that advanced hour of the night, in the keeping of a ragged varlet, to all appearance the helper of the helper in the sta* bles. After a minute'^s silence, he nodded off the whimsical intruder, whose countenance and ges- ticulations, during the ill-assorted dialogue, would have amused any other than one so little within the range of amusability. The 'boy about the place,** who seemed to have fiilly reached his majority, after some far- ther fidgeting, closed the door, with a fantas- tical bow, and a solemn — "I shawl, Sir Fre- derick — of coorse/** ^' This is the sum-up of aJl,'^ said the master of the deserted mansion, hastily recalling the man. he had dismissed. " Stay! come back. What is your name?"*' "Lawrence Fegan, Sir Frederick; and I wonders, axing yotp: honoris pardon, but you remimbers me.^' " Remember you !** THE PRINCESS. 77 " Ay, in troth ! Sure I 'm Larry Fegaii, your ould little tiger, that was give you with the brown cab and cob by Colonel Vere, long ago, Sir Frederick, when he left the Could-strames, and came oVer from Dublin, with th' other baste.^ *' Are you the boy that fell from behind my i^rriage, in the Park, and broke his arm ?'^ " Why, then, sorrow one else, pldze your honor, but just my own self. It 's what I Ve but little use of it iver since, to this blessed time.**' " I ordered ypu to be taken care of.'' " Long life to your honor T' was the vague reply, uttered with downcast eyes, and a sigh peculiarly Irish» *' I will see you again,'^ said Sir Frederick ; ** you may go now,'' Sir Frederick endcOTOured to stifle some com- punctious feelings for his own neglect of the sufferer, by apostrophizing the profligacy of his servants. " So much for the high life below stairs of London ! Good heavens ! what dis* order ! But is it wonderful, with such ex- amples before them? or can one be surprised if the English aristocracy should hurry for- ward revolution by the heartless dissipation 78 THE PRINCESS. of their time and fortunes, or undennine the very foundations of society by their wanton profligacy?^** He paused, sighed deeply, and then Hghted his taper to go to bed : but in doing the office of his absent lamp-man, and extinguishing the lamp and candles, a glare of red light crimsoned the whole room. It was the morning sun, shin- ing through the scarlet drapery of the windows* Sir Frederick drew the curtains for a moment aside ; then turned away, with a feeling which the most wretched might compassionate. Having deposited his letter on his ^tife's toilet in her dressing-room, he was hurrying to his own apartment on the other side of the house, when he recollected that he had left his watch on the study-table. On retuniing, he perceived that the porter^s chair was still occu* pied by Lawrence Fegan, who was already fast asleep. On the desk, beside him, lay a Jetter with a black seal. Sir Frederick took it. It was addressed to himself. The seal was sufficiently large to attract his attention, and its device caused a revulsion of his whole frame. He hurried back to his study, and read — cc THE PRINCESS. 79 TO THE BIGHT HON, SIB F. MOTTBA^> BABT. **The tnriter of these lines takes the liberty of maMng the following inquiries :— Has Sir F. M. any recollection of a yonng female having been received into the &mily of the late Sir Walter and Lady M., about fourteen years ago, under circumstances singular, if not roman- tic? Was this person, at the expiration of a year, driven from Mottram Hall in a way not alto^ gether creditable ? Was it afterwards under- stood, that being reduced to a destitute condi- tion, she fell into sickness ; and that she was conveyed in a state of delirium to a parish workhouse, by the miserable and sordid wretches with whom she lodged, in the neighbourhood of Holbom, and that she died there ? ^^ If all this statement be true, would the hu- manity of Sir Frederick lead him to visit that workhouse, on receipt of this letter, and per^ form an act of charity, which may reflect with a blessed influence on his after life F— -vede/tce^ to see that person, whose former wretchedness may have caused him some remorse ; but who did not, as was supposed, then die. In her d^ 80 THE PRINCESS. rium, she escaped from the spot — to which, after maay years of strange vicissitude, she has again been brought by misery and the fatality of circumstances* ^* The writer is commissioned to express this poor woman's desire to see Sir Frederick once more ; and has yielded to the weakness of a creature, still perhaps but too devoted to earthly ties, in forwarding her request, and enclosing the accompanying packets The subjoined order will admit Sir F*, without delay, to ward C of the parish workhouse of /* The letter dropped from Sir Frederick'^s hands, and with it the enclosure, which re- mained for a moment on the ground, where it had fallen ; at length he tobk it up, opened and found within it a ring, bearing on its enamel the flower called in French "/a nuirguerite^'^ and a motto in ancient and quiunt language, "FOETUNE INFORTUNE PORT UHE." It was wrapped in a paper, which contained a memorandum in these words :— - ^^I, Frederick. Mottram, do of my free and uninfluenced will declare, that I will never THE PRINCESS* 81 marry any other woman than , as long as she remains single, and deems me A^orthy of her choice. (Copy.) " Mottram Hall, Jan. — , 18— .'' With the paper w^ another, thus inscribed : *' I release Frederick Mottram from his En- gagement — an idle form, if the feeling that dictated it continue; — an useless one, if it do not " M. • The emotions produced by the perusal of these documents, acting upon a mind already shaken by strong passion, had all the wildness and concision of insanity. A rush of recollec- tions awakened a long-subdued compunction, exciting a struggle between pride and feeling — between all that is worst and all that is best in humanity. Sir Frederick, however, felt what ought to be done, and he resolved on doing it. Putting up the papers, therefore, in his pocket, he resimied his shoes and cloak, took his hat and gloves, and went forth. Larry Fegan was still sleeping in the porter'^s chair: neither Lady Frances nor the servants- £^ 5 I.' 82 THB PRINCESS. had yet returned ; the lamps in the hall burned dimly before the moming^s light. Sir Frederick shook the sleeper, who started from his slmnber with a ludicrous attempt at self-possession. '^ This letter with a black seal that I found here ; did you receive it ? ^ " The letter, sir P** said Larry, roughing up his hair and winking his eyes ; '^ of coorse, sir ! What letter, plaze your honor ?^' '^ This letter ; it was on the desk. Did you take it in? when did it come? who brought it?**' '^ It was myself took it in, and nobody else knows a screed of it,"" said Fegan, with an ex- pression of countenance inimitable in its hu- mour, intelligence, and arch significance. " Who brought it ?^ reiterated Sir Frederick, taising his voice angrily. " Why thin, Sir Fredmck, it was a faymale —a leedy in a hackney-coach.'' « A lady ! What sort of a Uwiy r " Axing your pardon. Sir Frederick, did iver you see one of the leedies of the House of Mercy, in Baggot-street, Dublin? Well, sorrow a bit but it was just that same sort, sir— -a kind of a blessed and holy woman. The like I niver saw THE PRINCBS8. 83 in London, before or since ; and wishes myself back in Dublin oncet more.'' After a moment's pause, Sir Frederick look- ed around him, and, lowering his voice, asked, " Is there a possibility of, getting a hackney- coach at this hour ? " " Of coorse there is — every possrbflity in life, your honor. A crony of mine, one Darby Doo Ian, firom Dublin, bees keeping one up all night, in St. James Vstreet. I'll just run and bring Daxby round in a moment to the door, sir.'" He had put on his black cap, and was dart- ing forward, when his master, laying his hand on his arm, exclaimed — *' Not here — not at this door — stop in Pall- mall, near the Travellers' Club." The contrast between his white-gloved hand and the ragged dirty sleeve of the locum tenens of the porter of Mottram House, was not more strange than that of the two persons thus acci- dentally brought into conference, each at the extreme degree of social separation. " Is it near theThravellers' ? — Oh ! very well, sir — I see — I'll be there and back in a jiiFy." -Fegan flew forth, and Sir Frederick, drawing 84 THE PRINCESS. his hat over his eyes, and his cloak round his shoulders, looked for a moment cautiously around ; and, with an almost unconscious self- congratulation that neither his wife nor ser- vants had yet returned, he went forth. As he crossed the plank which formed a tem- porary passage from Carlton-terrace into Pall- mall, he encountered his own hall-porter, who, being too drunk to recognise his master, disputed the pass with him. He was hurrying home from a public-house near St. JamesVsquare, (where he had been carousing,) to resume his post before his lady's arrival. The carriages were still rolling from clubs, soirits^ thiesy operarsuppers, and gambling- houses of various descriptions, public and pri- vate ; many of them filled by the orthodox and consistent voters for the permanence of tithes, and for Sir Andrew Agnew'*8 Bills for the due ob- servance of the Sabbath. One among the splen- did equipages bore the Mottram arms. The two sleepy footmen, in Sir Frederick's rich livery, swung behind ; and the pale, faded face of Lady Places (white as the pearl that glistened in her fair, uncurled tresses) was visible within. A THE PRINCESS. 86 broken exclamation rose upon her husband'*s lips ; but he felt that, at that moment, he had no right to accuse. He hurried on. The bottom of St. JamesV square was still choked with the carriages of the company at the Princess Schaffenhausen^s. Apprehensiye of being seen, and impatient for the arriyal of Fegan^s coach, he continued to walk backward and forward near the Palace, until, seeing a carriage approaching half-way down St. JamesVstreet, he crossed to meet it. The next moment he found himself surrounded by a group of men issuing from King-street ; among whom were the Marquis of Montressor, Lord Alfred, Lord Allington, Captain Levison, and two young noblemen, the husbands of two of the handsomest women in England. His in- cognito air had drawn the attention of the revel- lers ; but they soon made him out, and found a resistless source of ftm in detecting the great commoner, the most moral man in Europe, in apparent bonne fortune — ^for in such set phrases was he saluted by each alternately, with many profligate inuendoes, and loud shouts of laugh- ter-loying frolic. 86 THE PRINCESS. " Pray let me pass i^' he exclaimed, in micon- troUable annoyance ; '^ I have been called upon to visit a dying friend.'*' '^ Male or female ?'*' said Lord Montressor. ^^ How delighted I am,'' said Lord Alfred, ^' to see some tonch of himiaoity about the frozen man dug out of the glaciers of St. Ber^- nard, as the Princess calls you ^ > " Nay, nay, we must not discourage a young beginner : let him pass,'^ said the Marquis, laughing. " Lady Frances is still at the Princess's," cried Captain Levison ; ^' so you may as well turn into Crocky's, as you are out for a lark." With a look and manner not to be mistaken. Sir Frederick shook the young Guardsman off. ** Gentlemen, you must allow me to pass," he said ; and striding off, he left the psu^y, to pro- ceed up the street. " He is growing serious," said Lord Alfred ; " and is going to early prayers." ^' I don't think that,'' said LotA Allington, " for he voted against Sir Andrew's Sunday Bill." "A man may do that, and be very serious too ; as, for instance," — said Lord Alfred, and he nodded at the Marquis. THE PRINCESS. 87 The party laughed loudly^ and turned in to finish their Saturday night, or Sunday morning, with ' the Fishmonger.' Sir Frederick had reached the top of St. JamesVstreet, when he was met by a hack- ney-coach, with Larry Fegan's ragged elbow and important face thrust through the open window. The carriage drew up ; Fegan popped out, and, with the readiness of an accomplished footman, let down the step, closed the door, and, touching his postiUon'^s cap, asked, " Where to, Sir Frederick ?'' " To Holbom," was the reply. Fegan looked amazed, repeated the order, sprung up behind the carriage, and, swinging his tall figure by two dirty straps, assumed an air which a royal lackey might be proud to imitate on a drawing-room day. The coach stopped at the foot of Holbom- hill, and Larry presented himself at the carriage- side. " I did not want you/' said Sir Frederick, somewhat surprised ; " you may return.'' Fegan looked mortified; Sir Frederick took out his purse and gave him a sovereign, adding, 88 THE PRINCESS. '^ I do not wish what has passed to-night to be talked over in my stables.'' *'0h ! of coorse — intirely not,'' said Fegan archly. Desiring the coachman to wait his return, Sir Frederick proceeded with a hurried step, and his glass to his eye, on his devious and uncer- tain way, through many obscure lanes and dirty alUes, and occasionally directed by a loiterer, — when he happened to find one. Misery and degradation met him at every step. He paused in disgust and horror, un- certain how to proceed, and almost inclined to turn back. " If you want Mr. Johnson's, you must turn to the left," said a suspicious-looking man, point- ing towards a low house, or " finish," the last resort of subaltern debauchees, and the noctur- nal haunt of those profligates of both sexes who dare not encounter ' the garish eye of day,' — " Stay, sir," he continued, " I '11 call a com- rade ;" and he turned into one of those fright- fully splendid gin-palaces, to which philosophy assigns the ruin of the infatuated and miserable classes who support them. The blaze of light THE PRINCESS. 89 -emitted frOm its highly ornamented gas-bumers> as the opening door disclosed the scene within, triumphed Over the brightness of the rising sun. The ' comrade' came forth, smoking a cigar. He was all skin and bone, rags, filth, and stench.. He approached Sir Frederick with familiarity, in the supposed community of vice, saying, " Mr. Johnson''^ house ! — ^this way, sir, please.**' **No! I want to go to the workhouse of parish.^ ^' Oh ! Very well, you are quite close to it. m show you, — to the right, sir, — take care of that loose st6ne» You're come to look for a 'prentice among the younkers, I suppose? Plenty to be had there, warranted sound, wind and limb." He pointed to a placard over the gates in the centre of a high wall, on which was written, " Strong, healthy boys and girls, with the usual fee. Apiply within." " You '11 be paid for taking them, you see," hiccuped the wretched creature. Sir Frederick pulled violently the bell ; the gate opened, and he passed in. The cicerone receiving triple what he expected for his brief 90 .THE PRINCESS. sendees, winked, as he withdrew, at the sulky porter — sulky from being called &om his lair at so early an hour. Sir Frederick followed across the yard. A few wretched children, a fragment of the hundred and fifty thousand houseless or- phans who prowl about the streets of London, to beg or steal, were already assembled. Vice lower- ed on their young brows^ and want sat on their ghastly cheeks. An idiot woman seized his arm. " You shan't beat me !'' she said with a loud laugh ; and, jerking him from her triith violence, she reeled and fell. " Never mind her, sir," said the porter, who had taken the order of admittance, and was reading it. " Never mind her ; ahe will recover of herself.'' Sir Frederick sickened. He raised the ma- niac from the ground, and placing her on a seat, followed his conductor into the house. At the entrance stood a plain dark chariot, appar rently that of a physician. Its appearance was a relief to the unnerved, unmanned visitor. " The hospital ward, letter C," muttered the man, as he gave the order to an old nurse whom he met at the door. THE PRINCESS. 91 ^^ Oh I the gentleman as was to see the poor governess, lAayhap. It^s all over with her now! Howsomdever, this way, ar.'*' They proceeded along a dark passage, which admitted them into a long narrow room, dimly lighted by a few dosky windows on one side. A fire-place at either end was surrounded by a few withered okl women engaged in some culi- nary process, and pushing each other away, in the true unaccommodating selfishness of solitary misery. Each had her little tin vessel, prepar- ing some supplemental friandiae furnished by the charitable to eke out the insipid, if not scanty, nutriment provided by the institution. They were all marked by mutilation, infirmity, or that ' great disease,^ old age. The narrow and uncurtained beds on either side were te* nanted by the sick* and the dying. One only showed a young and a blooming countenance. It was a girl of about eighteen, who had occu- pied that bed for twelve years, as the nurse who accompanied the visitor declared* ^' She has lost the use of her limbs, sir, and hav- ing no friend on earth to move her, she remains constantly bedridden; and has seen many a neigh- 92 THE PRINCESS. bour conveyed to her last home, poor thing ! There, sir, is the bed you inquire for, No. 14.'** She then hurried off to obey the pressing call of some impatient patient at the farther end of the room. The bed No. 14 was covered from head to foot with a clean white sheet, on which shone a ray of sun-light from the opposite win- dow. Under this simple covering appeared the outline of a human figure. Beside it, knelt a female in a black mantle and hood« An ejaculation of horror burst from the lips of the visitor, wholly unused to such scenes, and now so agitated and shaken. He stood for a moment at the foot of the bed, covering his face with hid handkerchief and articulated with difficulty, ** I am come, then, too late !'' ^' Too late i*^ muttered emphatically the woman, rising slowly from her knees, and remaining mOi- tionless beside the bed of death. There was a silence of more than a minute. ^^ Is there anything to be done which may testify ....," The scarcely articulate voice o( the speaker could not, or did not, proceed. Nothing,'' was the low but stem reply. Money may be deposited for . . . .'^ THE PRINCESS. 93 " The parish finds a cofiin,^' interrupted one who seemed to belong as Jittle to this wprld as the inanimate remains which she hung over, A cold shudder crept through Sir Frederick'^s veins at the abrupt answer. There was an- other pause, awkwardly protracted. ' • Were you her friend .?" at length inquired Sir Frederick. " Charity and duty brought me to this asy- lum of misery two days back. The poor have no friends, save Heaven,*" she added, lowering her eyes and crossing herself, " The story of this wretched person, her sufferings, and her wrongs (for she waa of a class of sufferers and used to wrongs), moved me much. They are now over in this world !'' And she clasped her hands and bent her head. " And for ever, be it hoped !^' said Sir Fre- derick, with a burst of uncontrollable and so- lemn emotion. " Her sins be forgiven hejr ! for she loved, as she suffered, much,'' slowly murmured the pious woman, who w?is. evidently one of a peculiar re- ligious order, which, though not recognised by the laws of England, exists there, as throughout ^ I 94 THE PRINCESS. the rest of the Christian world, doing good hy stealth, and fearing, probably, aA mnch as ' blushing to find it fame.'* The infected atmosphere, the images of misery, sickness and death, were becoming too much for the heart and the imagination of a visitant so unpractised in haunts like this. He had felt and suffered more, perhaps, in the petty space of time he had passed in this chamber of woe, than he had ever done in his life. His breathing, too, was becoming oppressed, and his strength was failing him : but, aware of his situa- tion, he made an effort to rouse himself, and said, " I trust, madam, you will not allow an ac- quaintance, begun under such affecting circum- stances, to drop here. You have probably been put into the confidence of my late unfortunate friend, and '' " Was she your friend ?" asked the woman, in a tone of almost contempt. " Will you allow me to call on you ?^ was the evasive answer. " You were, of course, the writer of the letter which . . . . " " Yes, I wrote, and brought it, when this poor woman was at her agony." THE PRINCESS. 95 " Will you allow me, then, an opportunity of thanking you for your humanity ? Where shall I call on you ?'' *^ I have no home ! I was once like her,'^ (pointing to the corpse,) " homeless from neces- sity : I am now so from choice. But you have a splendid and a happy home. I will call on your Sir Frederick started, unconscious alike why he had made his own proposition, or why he was disturbed by hers. " I am leaving town,**' he «aid faintly. " I will wait your return,^' said the female ; and she knelt down and buried her fabe in her hands, as if to cut short the interview. Sir Frederick, after a short pause, retired. The old nurse, with sordid hopes and watchful eyes, accompanied him to the door. In passing by the bed of the youthful invalid, he involuntarily paused, and asked if there was anything she wished for. . She replied, with a hectic flush and sparkling eye — " Tea.'' He threw a sovereign* on the bed, gave ano- ther to the nurse, and hurried, almost without knowing how, to the street where he had left the 96 THE PRINCESS. carriage. Lany Fegan was still there, standing with the door in one hand, and his cap in the other. '^ I desired you to go away !'^ said Sir Fre- derick, in a tone of displeasure, " Sure, your honor, would I lave you to he murthered in that thieving-place, axing your honoris pardon ?'^'' *' Shut the door, and stop in Charing-cross,'*'' said Sir Frederick, in a subdued voice. He threw himself back in the carriage, and it « drove on. THE PRINCESS. 97 CHAPTER III. THB DRESSING-ROOM. Whoever would search into by-gone ages for the most undeniable evidences of what the French call " les nueurs^'*^ will find them better preserved in material monuments than In written records. Domestic habits escape the historian ; and when time, by tinting them with its own picturesque hues, commends them to the curio- sity of the antiquary, their remembrance has already become vague and evanescent. But tangible objects, escaping from the wreck of the past, are pregnant with inference; and they illustrate the progress of society on points which the historiographer neglects, and the poet despises. The wants of man are, in fact, his great teachers ; and the modes he may have adopted VOL. I. p 98 THE PRINCESS. for meeting them are infallible indices of his real position in the scale of civilization : for his last point of social refinement is but a more perfect development of some physical resource, and his highest flight of science only a better application of his power in administering to bis necessities. But if annalists have done little for the do- mestic history of mankind, (so pleasant to read in the preserves of antique chateaux and Go- thic mansions,) posterity is the more indebted to the garrulous memoir^writers and quaint diarists, whose naive and simple vanity has found an interest in the minutest details. The chaiming gossip of Dame Alienoure de Poic- tiers, the Sieur Brantome, Evelyn, and Pepys, in throwing open the dom^ic interior of other ages, have enabled us to judge better of the superiority of our own; and have, by their unsuspecting testimony, destroyed the prestige which time had thrown over the morals, the manners, the accommodations, and the wisdom of our ancestors. The charming pages of writers of this class teem with illustrations of the monuments of domestic art ; and the monuments, in turn, be- THE PRINCESS. 99 come the best commentaries upon their texts. It is thus that much philosophy may be deduced from furniture, and that rooms may be read like records. The dresaoir^ in one age the high- est mark of rank in the chambers of aristocracy, but now found only in the kitchen — and the chaise-a-dos^ once exclusively reserved for royal- ty, but now rejected as an uneasy seat even by a second-rate tradesman, are sensible and con- vincing images of the progressive destiny of the species ; of the necessity of innovation ; and of the hopelessness and the folly of all attempts to throw chains round the mind of man. Neither the marble palaces of Rome, nor the stately hotels of Paris, radiant in the golden rococo of the most gorgeous of all epochs, will stand a moment^s comparison with the domiciles of the simplest gentleman of the present times, for light, air, cleanliness or comfort ; aud the won- drous contrivances for convenience, for safety, and for health, which mark this world of differ- ence, (supplied by the mechanical arts at the call of utility and under the guidance of science,) are but the material and tangible results of that much-dreaded political liberty, which is, in truth f2 A I 100 THE PRINCESS. and in fiusi, synonymous for ciyilization and for happiness. Of this verity, the manor-honse of Mottram in the county of Northampton, and the mansion of Sir Frederick Mottram on Carlton-terrace, were notable illustrations. The manor of Mot- tram (a Saxon appellatiye preserved by the Nor- man adventurers, who at the Conquest obtained the fief) had been brought to the hammer by the representative of fourteen barons and of thirty-two quarterings ; and being purchased by a Binningham mannlactnrer, rererted to a descend- ant of the Saxon family, its original founders, whose successive representatives, deprived of their ancient possessions, had fallen from their high estate, and become an obscure and un- noted portion of the plebeian population of the country. Sir Walter Mottram, baronet, had started in life the porter of a mercantile and manu- facturing house in Birmingham, of which he died the opulent and sole head; and having added to the commoner virtues of industry and prudence, so necessary to advancement in trad- ing life, a high combining faculty, a genius for THE PRINCESS. 101 commerce, a cool courage, and a sound judg- ment, he had raised one of those colossal fortunes, which, scarcely perhaps equalled in Tyre, Carthage, or the commercial republics of the middle ages, form one of the most distin. guishing characters of the passing century in England. The old baronial edifice, of which Sir Walter became the proprietor, had been preserved with religious care ; and the refitted interior, though in strict keeping with the genius of the place, exhibited every species of improvement deriv- able from modem taste and science. The wealth of Sir Walter, the fanciAil taste of his wife, and the acquired vtrti of their only son, had rendered Mottram Hall another Houghton. The gallery was scarcely less rich in precious pictures; and its library was already noted, in the catalogues diraisonnes of bibliomaniacs, as among the choicest and rarest in the kingdom. The house on Carlton-terrace, on the con- trary, was altogether as new as the honours of its classical master. The ground on which it stood had been acquired in acquittal of a debt due to the fitther ; and the house (built 102 THE PRINCESS. under the immediate direction of the son) was an illustration of a system of his own, which combined the maximum of splendour with the greatest possible enjoyment. For Sir Frederick Mottram, nature and education had done much, though birth (in the conventional sense of society) had done nothing. A purer judg- ment never presided oyer that most delightful of enterprises (the pride of Pliny and the boast of Cicero), the construction of a home suited to the ^ elegant desires^ of early manhood, and to the enjoyment of reposing age. Youth, in its first outburst of life, indulges no such views : its passions are all abroad; with curiosity, like an avant-courter^ galloping in the van, it bivouacks in the desert, or revels in the kiosk ; while experience lags slowly in the rear, but finally and inevitably lures back, through ways which satiety tracks and disenchantment roughens. Sir Frederick Mottram had passed through this fitful and capricious stage of existence, and he believed himself now fitted to live and to enjoy. He had, in his early youth, been a literary enthu- siast, a devotee at the shrine of art ; in a word, THE PRINCE88. 103 the true soa of a woman of genius, from whom he had receired an organization which led to illu- sions he almost regretted, as being well worth the soberer realities of a too calculating philosophy. On the breaking up of the' temple of royal pro- fligacy and extravagance in Pall-mall) he had chosen that site for his town-mansion, as much on account of its thousand historical associa- tions, as of the conveniences of the locality. St. Jameses Palace and Park, Westminster Abbey and Westminster Hall, Whitehall, its gardens and river scenery, recalled to his glow- ing fisuQcy the poetry, the history, the gallantry, and the beauty of England,-*- the shrine of the Churches power-^the cradle of a race of kings —the scaffold of one despot and the harem of another,— the scene where the greatest ener- gies enacted the greatest drama that ever was represented in the cause of civil and religious freedom ! In the mansion of this rich commoner and staunch stickler for high English morality, there was one irregularity ; namely -^that the apart- ments of his wife were mounted upon the same style of luxury and voluptuousness as 104 THE PRINCESS. those of the mistress of Charles the Second, the too-celebrated Duchess of Portsmouth. The dressing-room of Lady Frances was indeed a fao-simile of ^ the glorious apartment^ recorded by Evelyn, whose words are well worth substi- tuting for a modem description; and they are equally suited to the purpose, excepting only the presence of the royal lover. '^ Following his Majesty this morning through the gallerie, I went, with the few who attended him, into the Dutchesse of Portsmouth's dress- ing-roome, within her bed-chamber ; where she was in her morning loose garment, her maids combing her, newly out of bed, his Majesty and the gallants standing about her. But that which engaged my curiosity, was the rich and splendid Aimiture of this woman's apartment, now twice or thrice pulled down and rebuilt to satisfie her prodigal and expensive pleasures, while her Majesty's does not exceede some gen- tlemen's ladies, in furniture and acconmiodation. Here I saw the new fabriq of French tapissry, for designe, tendernesses of worke, and incom- parable imitation of the best paintings, beyond anything I ever beheld. Some pieces had Yer- THE PRINCESS. 105 sailles, St. German^s, and other palaces of the French King, with huntings, figures, and land- skips, exotiq fowls ; and all to the life, rarely don. Then for Japan cabinets, screenes, pendule clocks, greate vases of wrought plate, tables, stands, chinmey ftimiture, sconces, branches, braseras, &c. all of massive silver and out of number, besides some of her Majesty'^s best paintings.'*^ In such a room, a few hours after Sir Frede- rick Mottram had returned from the ward of St. ^'s workhouse, sat his wife Lady Frances, sunk in the depths of her cushioned gondola. A dejeune of French vermeil stood on a guiridon be- side her; and her husband^s letter (not opened till a few moments before) was in her hands. Low, languid, in all the depression incidental to the excitement of the previous evening, and scarcely able to decipher the petulantly scrawled cha- racters, she threw it carelessly and contemp- tuously down, with a yawn, and a muttered "Oh! a jobation — tiresome!*" A beautiful paroquet, perched on the back of her chair, solicited her attention by the reiterated demand of, ^' Aimes'tu Coco?^ to which she replied, in p5 106 THE PRINCESS. tones almost passionate, ^' Oiu, je faime, num petit Coco /" " Ctat a ay tr' I have meddled so much with those of the country, that I have neglected my own most fooUshly. I am going down to-mptrow : with Harris to Mottram Hall, to mudcUe over accounts of twelve years^ standing, and put things in a better train. As for my health, Horace, I am dying. I don^t in the least mind what the physidans say, nor even what you think : I have that within, which passes their and your skill. The sourees of life, I feel, are dried up within me : nothing touches, nothing intei^ts me. The cut bono of all follows me like a sfaa*- dow. Music and painting, once the charm of my ^UstencQ; have lost their spell. I am inert, listjc^, dissatisfied ; with a perpetual weight cA tny spirits, and a prostration of will, that neither permits me to pursue any one object, nor to rest contented and tranquil in my nullity. I am feverish and restless by night, and my appetite THE PRINCESS. 165 18 ss wholly gone as my relish for thingg more intdlectuaL My temper, too, is becc»ae irri- table ; and I am annoyed by trifles, till I am vexed and mortified at my own susceptibility. This cannot long .go on. '^ Your allusion to one now no more was, I am sure, well meant ; so is the operation winch strikes the hnife into a deep-seated gangrene : but it requires considerable firmness of nerve to make the incision i " It was, however, more ill (or well) timed than you had reason to suppose. The im* age of that creature has recently recurred to my imagination, as I saw her first at my &ther^s, on my arrival from Oxford for my first vacation. She was singing at her easel, and copying my mother^ picture by Romney, She was dressed in that fimtostic Polish dress, which my mother^s always theatrical taste cooqk pelled her to assume. What a perfect incama* tion of all that is beautiftil in form, with all that is bright in moral combination ! Then, her quick apprehension of external forms, and her mystic power of reproducing them ! her faculty of high resolve, under the government of high 166 THE PRINCESS. motives ! What a sublime, what a privileged specimen of. humanity I Well, it is scarcely, five days since I saw this being, this once beaur tiful shrine of talents and acquirements so supe- rior ; and where do you think ? On the bed of penurious, public charity ; a corpse in a work- house ; indebted to benevolent but mistaken: piety for the last acts of compassionate sym- pathy ! " My mother and myself, as you well know, thought that this last scene of a heart-breaking tragedy had been completed fourteen years ago. We had been told so, and believed it. We h^^d not time then to inquire very deeply, for it was my wedding-week. ^ Some natural tears we shed, but dried them soon f and I went with my noble and beautiful bride to Italy. My mother died in my absence, and — But why this to you ? The bitter recollections this event left behind it, were added to the higher causes which threw me into public life. But she whom we had driven to this destiny did not then die ^ she lived to suffer and to struggle on, without making one application to her near and wealthy kinclred, and to die at last, and almost THE PRINCESS. 157 in my presence, in the workhouse of ! I cannot go on.'' « « « « « Sir Frederick Mottram flung down his pen, and throwing himself back in his chair, pressed his clenched hands on his aching brow, and yielded his whole being up to that torrent of uneasy sensation, to which disease of mind and of body alike contributed their evil influence. It was a splendid summer's evening, and the only silent hour which London knows at that season of pleasure and of bustle — the London dinner-hour. Lady Frances had not returned from a dSje&ne dinatoircy announced three weeks before, and given by Lord Alfred in honour of the Princess of Schaflfenhausen, whose arrival in London from a tour had that morning glit- tered in all the papers. Sir Frederick had himself left the House of .Commons early, for the purpose of transacting some business preparatory to his leaving town the next day; but he had employed the interval in answering his friend's letter, a task to which he brought an aggravated feeling of remorse conjured up by its allusions. He was still 158 THE princess: busied in the indulgenee of bitter reoollections^ when the study-door slowly opened, and Larry Fegan again stood, as he had done some weeks before, in the opening. It was, l^wever, no longer the helper of the helper—- the rough, ragged, and forlorn creature, whose appeajrancd was at once so farcical and so astounding: it was the head grooln of Sir Frederick's esta* blisbment, a handsome, showy, and well-dressed palefreniery as ever shared the admiration of the Sunday promenaders^ of the Park with the iiis* tingnished master he followed. ** Well, sir l^ said Sir Frederick, starting sm from an uneasy dream« *' I big your pardon. Sir Frederick, intirely, and didn't know your honor was in it, sir. I only came to take the liberty of laving a frank for my mother, to be freed at your honor's leisure. *• Mistress Betty Burke,' sir, ' alias Fegan, Shanballymao, county Kerry — ^to be lift till called for— care of Mr. Owen Geraghty, Post Office.'" " I cannot remember all this," said Sir Fre- derick, impatiently ; ^' write the address, and leave your letter." •i THE PRINCE88. 159 " I shall, sir, of coorse,**' replied Fegim^ re- tiring to the door, and yet pausing at the threshr old with a look whioh indicated that his Irish ingenuity had made the avowed pretext of his intruMon but the avant-couritr to something that remained behind. He paused, picked up a book that had fallen from the d&elves, and asked if he should order lights. A sharp '^ No''^ again drove him to the door, which he half closed ; bat, advancing once more to the table. Sir Frederick drew up, and asked — " What is the matter ?'' ^^ Nothing in life, plaze your honor,^ was the reply, " only a taste of a note, Sir Fre- derick, I left for you here on your teeble. I was mounted on' the blood mare, after coming in with your honor from the Park to-day, and waiting for orders in regard of going to the House, sir, before I put up the mare, when she said to me, says she, ^ The porter has refused to take my note to Sir Frederick,^ says she.^^ " Who ? — what she ?^' was asked impa* tiently. '' Th' ould Sister of Charity, Sir Frederick ; you know yourself, sir, of coorse*^ 160 THE PRINCESS. Lajrry Fegan paused ; but there was a humor- ous dgnificance in his face which indicated that more was meant than spoken. " So, plaze your honor," he continued, " I tuck the Uberty of bringing the note myself, for charity's sweet sake, and left it here, sir, under this bit of green marvel, sir, with the little dumb blackamoor on it/' As he spoke, he raised a beautiful presse-pa- pier with a bronze figure of Silence. Sir Frede- rick snatched up the note, and Fegan retreat- ed to the door, fixing his eyes on his master with a gaze of intense curiosity. Sir Frederick read : " At the desire of Sir Frederick Mottram, the person who met him at the workhouse of — — has called twice in Carlton-terrace, but was not admitted. Should Sir Frederick have any inquiries to make of her, she will be happy to reply to the uttermost of her ability ; but she leaves London at an early hour to-morrow, on professional avocations. She will receive any order left before midnight with the porter of the chapel of the Embassy, directed to Madame Mortier.'' THE PRINCESS. 161 During the rapid perusal of this note, Law*, renee Pegan was slowly drawing the door after him. " Stay !^ said Sir Frederick. Fegan shut the door with alacrity, and drew up. " Get your hat, and retum.**' Fegan was back before his master had con- cluded th^ following lines : — " Madam, — I trust you wiU allow me to apologize de vive voix^ for the impertinence or mistake of my porter. I shall remain at home for the rest of this evening, and shall be flat- tered by the honour of a visit. The person who will deliver this (an Irish Catholic) wiD be in attendance to admit you. " I have the honour to be, &c. &c. « F. MOTTRAM."' Fegan accepted his commission with an air of confidential importance, which showed that intrigue was an ingredient of his temperament ; and Sir Frederick returned once more to the letter he had left unfinished, when interrupted 16^ THE PItmCESS. by his groom : he added the following poet- dcript :-^ " A little incident has occurred, which obliges- me to conclude thus abruptly. I have much to say to you, dear Horace ; but it must be under the old elms of Mottram Hall. Till then, and ever, vale et me ama! "F. M.**' Fegan, for whose return Sir Frederick had waited with impatience, at length arrived, bring- ing only a receipt for his own billet. He was desired to remain in waiting in the hall ; whercj with Mr. Jennings the new porter^s permission, he seated himself at the desk. Taldng from his pocket the awkwardly-folded sheet prepared for his master^s firank, he began to write that letter, which at first had only been thought of as an excuse for following up his effort to pro- cure the Sister of Charity the means of apply- ing to Sir Frederick. Whether her hillet was one of love or of religion, Fegan knew not ; but he was equally ready for either mission. The results of his epistolary vertt are sub- joined. THE PRINCESS. 168 ^' TO MBS. ELIZABETH FEOAN, ALIAS BUBKE^ SHANBALLYMAC, COUNTY KEBBY. '' Onebbd Motheb,— -I writ ye a long letter by Jimmy Howlau, who was going to the leeks firom Brissels, with his fturrin master — and woiddnH care if myself was in it ; th^ iday of ould Ireland just hanging about my neck like a milestone; though the greatest of hick has come upon me since thin, mother dear; and I no more thinking of it, surely, than the child unborn. And well, ma^am, what would yez be after thinking if it^8 own body groom I am to the Rt. Hon» Sir Fre- derick Mottrum, barynite, and minister of steet, and privy-counseDor to the King — O 1 divil a less, ma'am: and I thought it the greatest of honors to be his own little boy behind the cab, and breaking my arrum — God bless the mark ! Och ! then, mother dear, I wisht you were after seeing me, this blessed day, 'beve all the days 0*^ the year, mounted on an elegent blood mare the Knight of Kerry might be proud to ride, and I in my bran new liyery shuit, that is no livery at all, I 'm proud to say ; but just sich a coat as the first gentleman in the land 164 THE PRINCESS. neednH be ashamed to wear : to say nothing of a new carline,* and neither band nor bow, so that it ^8 what I might pass for a raal gintle- man bred and bom all over th^ universal world ; which, mother dear, you know I am, if every one had his jew. And the masther, the Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick) riding afore me, down to the House, and up the Park, to tV intire amazement of the out-of-dur servants, including Mr. Saun- ders, the head coachman, a raal buckeen, keep- ing company with the best in the land at the races and other resorts. '^ Mother dear, I '11 send you a sovrin in gould, and an iligant shawl, by the first oppor- tunity ; and was thinking that when I M be after taking my second quarter-— and has twenty guineas a-year, ma'am, with clouths, boots, and buckskins — (for the first will go to pay my trifle of dits ;) and sure, it 's in regard of being so long out of pleece, and other raisons afore-min- tioned in my last. Och hone ! but I was in a poor wey thin ; but don't be graving now, for it 's all over, like the fair of Athy : and was advised by th" under coachman, a dacent * Hat :— qusre, vthy so called in Ireland ? THE PRINCESS. 165 Dublin boy, to presint a petition to Sir Fre- derick, and tell him how I had fell into thronble, and grew up big, bare, and neeked ; but had a spurrit above it, of coorse, as well beeomed me : and manetime was doing a turn about the place, in th^ offices and the steeble-yard ; and had my bit and my sup, and my rag ; and Larry here, and Larry there, and doing a turn for the housemaids one day, in regard of the dustings and the popeVheads ; and helping the helper on another ; and hiding in the hay-loft, from Mr. Saunders, who hates the Htrish, bad luck to him ! worse nor pison : and th"* hall por- ther, who isn't the boy to throw a drop over his shoulder, nor stand by looking at other people dhrinking ; and I put into his aisy-cheer, night afther night ; and not a christhian in the house, bad or good, only myself, and the maids, and the sick futman in the garret, and nobody to look after him nor wet his lips but myself. *' Well, the divil sich ballyboraging and rol- licking ever ye seed as is going on here from morning till night ; and my Leedy and Sir Fre- derick knowing no more about it nor the child unborn : and you M be afther taking th' house- 166 !«£ PRINCESS. steward for a bishop, and the grooms of the oheeinbers for the protestant ministers of Shan* ballymac ; they looking as stately, ma^am, and as high, as the rock of Cashel, in black cloaths, and white cambrick pocket-handkerchiefs. And this is the way, mother dear, I got into place, opening the hall-door for the maisther in the middle of the night, and the blessed sun shining, and other things, which it doesnU behove me to be afther talking about ; so mum^s the word. ^^So now I^m his hono/s own groom, and grown as fat as a fool, ma^am ; having lots to ate, nothing to do, and plenty to help me. So, the place shooting me intirely, I have got my hair cut in the new London fashion, with an helper under me, and goes to Ashley^ and begr my duty to Father Murphy, for the great peins he tuck with my edication — and no thanks to Miss Orimly^s Protestant OxUlery Bible Son- day-school: and till him, if ye plaze, that I means to take up, and look to my duty, and takes the liberty of sending him a snufi-box, which Jeemes Howlan tells me was blessed by^ the Pope of Room, with the other bastes, on St. Anthony'^s day ; and gave him a bmn new THE PfilNGBSS. 167 Gulgee haadkerchief f(»r it ; with which, includ- ing the sovrin and the shawl, I remain, onered mother, ^* Y^nr own dear. and dtttiM son, till farther notice by post or otherwise, your affectionate ^'Lawasnce Pboan.'" While Fegan was thus amusing himself by the simple but not unstudied expression of his filial feelings, the grooms of the chamber were hurrying to their posts, lamps and lustres were lighting, and notes of various preparation were sounding in the hitherto silent mansion. A select party was expected to return with Lady Frances, to tea and a grtlU, from a fete at Norwood. Meantime, Sir Frederick was waiting in anxious impatience for the arrival of his in- vited guest : he considered his acceptance of her proposed visit as a species of tribute to the memory of one, whom conscience or vanity made him believe he had hurried to an un* timely grave ; and he sought in vain to quell his perturbation and appease his restlessness by the details of business. 168 THE PRINCESS. The clock had stmck eleven, when Lady Frances's retnm was announced by the roll of carriages, and by piuch noise and laughing, as she parsed with her party up stairs. Other carriages and other guests succeeded. Sir Frederick rang his bell ; but before the footman could appear, the officious Fegan was at the door. *' She isn't come, plaze your honor, or I lets your honor know, of coorse,'' he said, signifir cantly. '* Send William to me,'' was the answer, ^^ and tell the second coachman to hare horses at the door at five in the morning. You may then go to bed : I have no farther occasion for you." Fegan retired, with his customary "Of coorse, sir ; " which, however, was not in perfect keep- ing with the expression of mortified disappoint- ment that sat upon his countenance. When William appeared, his answer to his master's inquiries was, that " her ladyship had a very small party at tea." Midnight arrived, and Sir Frederick dismissed all expectation of his devout visitant. He was almost relieved by the disappointment. He had THE PRINCESSr. 169 a few wards to say to Lady Frances before leaying town, relative to his son; and he re- solved, after a slight struggle with his feelings, to join her party for a few minutes. He was just passing into the hall, with this intention, as a chair entered it. A lady in black, who had more the air of a Venetian mask than of the guest of an English drawing-room, stepped out. The thought that this might be his expected visitant crossed him ; and he would have returned to his study, but a line of servants cut off his retreat. The footmen in the inner hall gave her name to the groom of the chambers on the landing-place ; and the title of the Princess of Schaffenhausen resounded from chamber to chamber, as she passed through the suite of rooms to Lady Franceses boudoir. Sir Frederick stood for a moment in angry astonishment. Lady Frances had solemnly pro- mised not to see the Princess again, during her stay in England; had assured him that she had taken her final leave of Carlton-terrace ; and yet she was now again imder his roof; admitted into his wife^s most intimate society; and, to judge by her appearance, entering his doors, if VOL. 1. I 170 THE PRINCESS. not incognito, at least with the view of escaping identification, should chance throw hmi, where choice never conld, into his wife'^s society. His feelings were outraged, his pride wonnded, his hnmonr goaded to its uttermost bitterness ; and he resolved on holding no farther terms with one whose duplicity,' contempt for his wishes, and indifference to his injunctions and opinion, had passed the bounds of all sufferance. Yet she was in the midst of her kindred, and surrounded by admirers; while he, an alien in his own adopted circle, in his own house, amidst a host of acquaintance, had not one firiend. A sense of this desolation aggravated every other emotion, and he advanced through the beautiful and half-lighted rooms with a haggard look and disturbed air, that aroused the tite-a-tiU languor of the occupants of Lady Franceses boudoir. These were Lord AlUngton and Mrs. St. Leger, The former stared, but coolly kept his seat : the latter sprang forward to an inner room, plainly to anticipate his arrival. There was an attempt to shut the door ; but he burst in. His appearance was momentary, but of THE PRINCESS. 171 strange effect. Between his entrance at one door, and his departure through another, scarcely a minute elapsed ; though it had suf- ficed to embarrass and disconcert the idle and inconsiderate group which occupied the apart^ ment. The company were gathered round a species of gambling^table, fitted up in a chamber dedi- cated exclusively to the arts. The gamesters were already worn out by the long pursuit of their morning's amusements ; and eyen the ex- citements of a novel species of dissipation failed to en^iage them. But Sir Frederick'^s transit put an abrupt termination to the amusements : carriages were ordered, the guests departed, the lights were extinguished, and silence i^gain reigned in the gorgeous but dreary mansion. The scene which had occurred had been so rapidly enacted, that none but the principal ao- tress was capable of calculating its consequences or appreciating its details. Foolish, frivolous, and inconsequent as Lady Frances might be, she trembled for the results as they affected her own plans and pleasures ; though less alive to their influence on her character and her posi- i2 172 THE PRINCESS. tion with her husband : and in her habit of re- lying upon others, or the consciousness of her own want of resource, she threw off one of those wordy epistles, the fac-dmiles of her own in- coherent and disorderly mind. ^' TO THE MARCHIONESS OF MONTBE880B. " Carlton-terrace. '^ Dearest Geoboina, — Come to me, or send me Lord Montressor, as soon as possible. I have had another blow-up with Sir Frede- rick, worse than the opera scene, I really think he is mad. Good Heavens ! how happy you are ! Aubrey adoring you as a woman, and revering you as a saint ; your husband con- fiding in you, and nobody finding fault with you,. ^M told you, Sir Frederick wanted me to set off with him to Mottram Hall ; but my cards were out for a dSJe^nS at the Willows. Besides, once away, and adieu to the confederation of the Rhine! After much discussion, we came to a compromise : he to start immediately ; and I to follow as soon as I could, trusting to what might turn up in the mean time. ^^ Last night, however, — ^he being engaged, THE PRINCESS. 173 SA 1 thought, at the House, as usual, — I re* turned from Alfred Montressor^s dijeHni^ where I scarcely spoke to the Princess, who only showed herself for half an hour, and would not allow her horses to put up ! Well, they all came back to tea at Carlton-terrace. It was the first night 1 opened the little tribune for the racing- table ; having ventured to move back Sir Fre- derick's Venus, on the suggestion of Lord Al- lington, who said such odd things : for the Venus was covered with dust, poor dear ! In short, the whole thing reminded me of 1829, before you ^ew sick and saintly, as Lord A. says. " Well, just as I had betted on the Jersey colours, and flung down my handful of balls, (and lost my money, par parent hise^) who should appear at the door but Sir Frederick ! For the last six years, I never knew him join my parties after coming from the House. The worst of it was (and, by all that 's sacred, accidentally) the Princess had dropped in ; and I must say, not more unexpectedly than xmwished for, and quite contrary to our agreement : for, only that I want her for the service of the Confederation 174 THE PRINCESS. this summer, I should eeitainly hare cat her ; Ae 18 so y^7 severe and despotic. Howeyer, she drew her lace maatilla over her fiice (you know her way) as soon as ever the ghost of Baaquo aj^peared. '^Tbe first thing that struck my husband, was the diqdaced Venus (his Canoya). In moving her out of the way, Alfred Montressor had broken her nose, which he had fiEustened on with sealing-wax. Little Leyison of the Ghiards had put his cap upon her head, Claude bad corked moustachtsy and Mrs. St. Leger rolled her Uack cashmir oyer the bust. You never saw such a wounded hussar ! It was i mourtr ! We shouted laughing ; and this brought on a romping match; and then, the cauaeust was upset, and the cushions were all about the floor ; when, lo f Sir Frederick started in, overthrew the racing-table, and, seizing Glanders arm, asked him in a voice half suffocated with rage<— ^^ Is this one of your mischievous pranks, young sir.*" ^^ At this moment Mrs. St. Leger was pushed forward by the Princess (by whom she was soufflie with miraculous quickness), and passing her arm through Sir Frederick^ with one of THE PRINCESS. 175 her pretty minauderies^ looked in his face and said, ^ No, I am the criminal ;^ and pointing to the Venus, she added — ' Qui tious negligent nous ptrdenty-^ for you know the picture scene has got into the caricature shops. The effect was instantaneous. Sir Frederick disengaged himself, and rushed out of the room by the draped door, behind the alcove, which opens into hifl own apartments. ^' Of course you understand the mot d'^nigme 9 You remember his infatuation of three years back, before Mrs. St. Leger^s departure for Germany ; the diamond agraffe sent to me by Storr and Mortimer^ by mistake ; his (Mot- tram's) capricious cut, after showing her up by his devotion in a way quite unpardonable : when once a woman is affichie as the favourite of a public man, there is no retreat. Private flirta- tions pass unnoticed ; but I never yet knew a woman completely get out of the scrape, if in- scribed in the pension-list— did you ? ^' The Princesses conduct was tmpayable ; but the quickness with which the little St. Leger seized on the idea was still more clever. Lord Allington says she is, out and out, the most adroit woman in London ; and that people will 176 THE PRINCESS. find out, some day, (as they did Lady Jane Tre- vor^s beauty,) that she is anything but a fool. " Well, dear, I sent them all away (the Prin- cess had glided off before I could thank her) ; but I had a horrid night, and I now write to .you from bed, not having yet rung for Felicite. I shall wait my sentence patiently. Men are too unreasonable ! Mottram has nothing really to reproach me with; for, as for my engoue- ment for my godson, that is too ridiculous ! Good Vye ! I send this by Hippolyte — don'^t keep him — et aime moi, commeje fatme r *' F. Mottram.**' '* P. S. Gracious Heaven ! What do you think ? Sir Frederick is off for the Continent ! — Sailed this morning, at seven o'clock, from Tower-stairs ! Je nen reviens pcLs, Not a word, not a line ! I had sent Felicity to tell Saun- ders that I wanted a groom to ride to my aunt CampbelPs, when she returned with word that the second groom was ill, and that the first (some strange Irish creature that Mottram has taken into special favour) had gone with his master. The travelling-chaise, packed up for Mottram Hall, as was supposed, had taken them to the Tower-stairs at six ; and the postilion had THE PRINCESS. 177 brought back the carriage with the doors locked up, and the key kept. So, whether the chaise- boxes had been removed, and the secret drawers emptied, is unknown. The whole is a mystery ! ^' His own man knows nothing about it. He ' slept out of the, house, as usual, (the profligate !) after he had laid out his master^s things and heated the bath ; and he did not return till nine this morning (his master not intending to go till twelve). Nobody went with Sir Frederick but his new Irish groom; a helper, observe, in the stables, the other day ! and the Figaro of the hackney-coach adventure on the opera night, as Alfred Montressor* called him. All sorts of things came into my head. Can he have gone off with any one ? '^ Well ! there is a reprieve, at all events. I shall, I suppose, get a protocole de mariy as the Princess calls it, before long. In the mean time, I breathe, dear ; and the breakfast at the Willows goes on. I shall expect you : a dSjeikni by daylight comes within your law ; and I am to let good Mrs. Medlicot hold a bazaar in the garden, for the benefit of her Timbuctoo Tract Society. — Addio ! Ouce more, come to me.^ i5 178 THE PRINCESS. CHAPTER V. TOWEB-STAIBS. Fbom the scene, which Lady Frances had so inconsistently described, Sir Frederick Mottram had fonnd his way to his own room, in a state of irritation, to which the antecedents of its imme- diate cause had powerfully contributed. A life, habitually harassing and unhealthy, had unstrung his nerves ; and the agitations, public and domes- tic, of the last three weeks, were now summed up in a personal insult. Annoyed, therefore, to the uttermost pitch of endurance, he flung his full len^h on the sofa. The atmosphere of the close-curtained room was stifling; a lamp which burned in the adjoining bath-room, sent its rays dimly through the dense yapour of the heated water. He lay with his face pressed on his burning hands; and his position, like the localy was TH£ PRINCESS. 179 favourable to a painM indulgence in uneasy sensations. Datk thoughts, like stormy clouds, flitted across the surface of his mind, which, already disposed to magnify and distort every incident that had passed, was torn with regrets, self-reproach, remorse, and indignation. Its morbid functions, multiplying erroneous con- ceptions, exaggerated the absurd occurrences respecting the statue into premeditated ridicule, contempt, and scorn. The ruin of his hopes, his character, his affairs, swept through his dis- tempered imagination in frightful forms, with a rush and confusion of ideas that approached the very confines of insanity. While lying thus steeped in misery, he heard, or fancied he heard, some one stirring in his bath-room. He sprang upon his feet, and imme- diately a door clapped sharply from within, as if some one had gone hastOy forth. But there was still something moving and fluttering about ; and on entering the inner room, he saw his wife^s favourite parroquet perched above the bath. The bird, alarmed at his impatient efforts to take it prisoner, eluded for some time his grasp, and fled, repeating its silly habitual phrase of 180 THE PRINCESS. «' Mmes-tu Coco f^ At leng^, however, he seized it, and, in his impatient spleen, crushed, and flnng it into the water. ^' Aimes'-tu . . • .^^ gargled once more in its throat, and then was heard no more. Had Sir Frederick strangled the donor of the unlucky favourite, whose tones it had caught, he could not have been more confiised or shocked. He felt as if he had sunk to the. last point of degradation. The violence of his emotions, his gloomy imagination, led him to consider this act as little short of a crime. A revulsion took place in his whole frame; his ears tingled, the sight left his eyes, and, utterly worn out and exhausted, he sunk senseless to the ground. How long consciousness had been suspend- ed by physical debility, he knew not ; but on recovering recollection, the daylight was already pouring through the crevices of the. shutters. He arose, and threw open the win- dows. The morning air brought with it refresh- ment and restoration ; and, with a mind gra^ dually cooled down, he turned to seek his bed ; when a paper caught his eye. It lay in the THE PRINCESS. 181 middle of the floor, nearly opposite to the door of the adjoining bath-room. MechanicaQy, and without purpose, he stooped and took it from the ground. It was addressed to himself, and written with a pencil. The contents at once seized his whole attention: — ^^ Up and away ! You think yourself mi- serable; you are but iU. You think yourself aggrieyed; you are but dispirited. You blame others for the results of your own conduct. Your springs of life want new tempering ; your mind needs refreshment, but you will find none at Mottram Hall : you will find there old associa- tions, and you need new impressions. Leave England, then ; leaye it immediately : why not to-day ? Could you start with Parry to the Pole, or with Lander to the burning plains of Africa; could you plunge into the unexplored forests of America, to tread the tangled woods of the Oswega, or slumber in the branches of the hemlock-tree; it were well and best. But if you cannot visit new regions, you can seek the old ones under new circumstances. Look to re- generated Europe ; throw away the spectacles of £Ekction, cleanse off the film of party, break the 18^ THE PRINCESS. thraldom of fashion ; learn to imleam,-r-to feel, think, judge for yourself. Go forth to the world a man; and not that mass of habits, prejudices, morbid refinements, and factitious wants, an English aristocrat, the pupil of old schools, the support of gone-by institutions. ^^ I told you I would obey your caQ ; I have done so, but your petulance brooked no delay, and I missed you in your study. I have passed through your dissipated house as a public robber might, unobserved, unmolested. My vocation is to seek the wretched, to alleviate suffering wherever I find it ; in the golden saloons of the wealthy, as in the homely wards of the parish workhouse : you are miserable, and I am at my post. '^ Up then and away! The morning breaks, the wind is fair, sails are unfurling, steam is rising. There is a tricoloured flag floating on the Thames; it is the flag of a regenerated people. Try the effect of transition. Give to the winds the frivolous vexations which prey on your noble mind. The word of the age is, En avant ! he who lingers last is lost."*^ m Sir Frederick read and re-read this singular THE PRINCESS. 183 fragment : the identity of itia author could not be mistaken. . Disgusted as he was, even be- yond satiety, with all that belonged to the world in which he was movingi the spirit, vagueness and mystery of the communication, the romance and enthusiasm which appeared to animate the writer, had the power of a spell. It was gracious to reflect, that some one did exist sufficiently interested in him to exert even so strange an interference ; and the advice offered was in perfect accordance with the tone and temper of the moment. To embrace that advice, was at least a resolve ; it was doing some- thing \ it removed the vacillation of purpose; it strengthened the helplessness of broken-down volition; it brightened the gloom of hopeless despondency. The clock of the Horse-guards had now struck five; and a wild and warbling whistle, resembling the silver tones of a mountain fla^ geolet, was rising &om beneath the windows of the apartment. Some one, then, was up in the establishment. Sir Frederick listened with emotion and interest to the air, for it was one to which his mother'^s memory was attached. 184 THE PRINCESS. It was by the singing of that air, that she had first won his father^s affections. It was the beautiful Irish melody of ' Allein a Roon.^ To his inquiry, in a low but distinct voice, of " Who is there ? who is whistling ?^' he was answered by Fegan. " It ^s me, plaise your honor, of coorse. Sir Frederick, gitting riddy to attind your honor, to Mottram Hall, according to orders from Moun- seer last night, sir !^ '* Is there none up but you ?'^ " Sorrow christhian. Sir Frederick, only the house-dog, poor ould Naro here !'^ ^' Order the post-horses inmiediately, and awake no one.^^ " I shawl. Sir Frederick. But, axing your pardon, sir, in regard of the walley, who is not at home in respect of being out . . . .^ '^ I shall take no one with me but you,^^ was the answer. The brush with which Larry Fegan was giving the last polish to his own boots, fell from his hands. ^' Is it nobody but myself ! to dress and xnt- dress your honor, and ....'" THE PRINCESS. 185 Sir Frederick had abeady left the window ; and Larry's modest interrogatory was left un- answered. There was a rush of ambition from the heart to every pore of his extremities. The words died away on his lips as he half repeated his inquiry; and he flew to execute his commission, repeating, " Nobody but myself — confidintial, servant and own man to the Right Honorable ! Well, well, the devil's in you (Lord pardon me !) Larry Fegan, for luck ! And Wouldn't wonder to see myself house -steward, a&d gentleman at large, before the year's out !" Sir Frederick Mottram had changed his dress, and was seated in his carriage as the clock struck six. He stopped but for a mo** ment, at the packet-office in the Haymarket ; and then gave his orders to the astonished Fegan, who, perched on the box in front, driving clouds of yellow dust from his gloves, his cravat pulled up to his ears, and his hat perched upon three hairs, repeated in a tone he meant to be important, his master's order, ^' Do you hear, my lad ? Tower-steers, if you plaze, and drive aisy !" The postilion touched his cap, flourished his 186 THE PRINCESS. whip, and galloped off. The transition was magical. The west end of the town, at that early hour, was silent and deserted, as a city swept by the plague, or sacked by war. The mansions were barred up, the club-houses closed : even porters slept; while ladies ceased from troubling, and pages were at rest. The wor- shippers in the hi^gh mosques of profligacy had made their nightly offerings of vice and folly at its altars — (health, time, fortune, peace.) As the carriage passed Northumberland House, Sir Frederick sighed and closed his eyes. It was the last frontier of that world, for which he had lived ; for whose opinion he now suffered. It was the barrier of the west. As the carriage rolled on towards the east of London, what life and activity presented them-^ selves to view ! There, every house was open, every window bright. Every inhabitant was awake and stirring; and industry was on the tiptoe of exertion ! Market-carts, almost poeti- cal in their lading of fruit, herbs, and flowers, were led, some haply by the fathers of futmre peers, others possibly by embryo peeresses, des- tined to change the roses and lilies bestowed by THE PRINCESS. 187 Nature'^s ' sweet and ctuming hand,^ for the JUurons of heraldry and the jewelled cap of" rank: for such things have been, and must be, as long as youth and beauty have their price in the great market of passion or of pro- fligacy. But, in this bustling field of industry and of wealth, all was not equally bright. If ' in the midst of life we are in deatV by the doom and sentence of Nature, the workings of society con- tribute also their share to the horrible and startling contrast. The gallows erected in front of the debtor's door of Newgate, met the eye and sickened the heart of the morbid and me- lancholy observer, as he passed along. One of the great tragedies of human existence — cool, dispassionate, legal murder — ^was about to be performed ! Crowds thickened ; avenues were densely peopled with eager spectators ; some anxious to try conclusions with fate, and to learn by experience what may be that crowning mystery which terminates the long vista of all our hopes and all our fears; the greater number, intent only on a spectacle and a senr sation. 188 THE PRINCESS. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood, alone, took no notice of a scene, of too frequent occur- rence to awaken curiosity, or to point a moral. Shopboys were cleaning windows; fishmongers and butchers were busily occupied unloading their carts for the adjoining market ; and ser- vant-maids were hurrying home with the com- fortable and abundant breakfast of the trades- man's hungry, healthy family. Behind this ex- terior, was the cell of the condenmed criminal, , where, stretched on the rack of unrest, he listen- ed to the dreadfrd toll of the bell which antici- pated, while it announced the fate that awaited him : — ^there was but a wall between ! Sir Frederick Mottram, the privy-counsellor who had so often witnessed the royal ratification of such sentences; the legislator, who had so often by his vote checked the step of humanity and of civilization in their march towards a puri- fied and enlightened justice, sunk back in his carriage, overcome and dispirited. An image had effected what argument had vainly attemped ; he ftlt^ what he never yet could understand ; the vanity and the weakness of those wise saws and ancient instances, which legalized barbarity, THE PRINCESS. 189 and sanctified selfishness with the borrowed at- tributes of a righteous judgment. " There is, I fear, something wrong in this r he muttered with a sigh of deep suffering. " This is a dreadful price to pay, even for the main^ tenance of order ! Life for life, was the stem law of Moses ; but life for a purse, for a toy, is hard to understand !" The deep red colour of Lawrence Fegan, the flush of joy and of hope, faded to a deadly -hue as he passed this scene of suffering. It brought him back to Ireland, to the drop of the gaol at Cork, where a near and dear friend of his own had, years ago, met his fate : such too might possibly have been his own destiny, had not want and hunger driven him to enlist as a fifer in an English regiment. His talent for whistling had probably saved him from a like ignominious death. He put the comer of his cravat to his eyes. " I say, master !" cried the postboy, address- ing the dicky-box ; "if we had been aUttle later, we should have seen the frin. I seed that -ere fellow at the Fives Court, many a time ; and as fine a chap he was, as you would clap your eyes on !'^ 190 THE PRINCESS. " So was Pat Macdermot,^ said Larry to himself with a suffocating sob. The carriage now rolled on through the in- tricacies . of that grand mart of enterprise, for which the whole world presents no parallel,^- the city of London properly so called. The human tide was pouring along as ftdl and strong as though it were noonday. Cars, carts, wag- gons, drays and stages, thronged and obstructed the narrow streets, almost impeding all ^- proach to the Thames, which itself exhibits a spectacle of bustle and confusion still more im- posing. The Thames, choked with its teeming vessels, floating to the metropolis the ^' wealth of Ormus and of Ind,^^ and distributing to the remotest shores the endless comforts and com- modities created by British industry, exerts a moral influence on society and civilization greater than all the blessings of its physical benefactions. It bears abroad on its tide, to all the nations and tribes of man, the products of a free press, the lights of science, the catechisms of liberty ! To the distempered imagination of Sir Fre- derick, the impressive scene took another and THE PRINCESS. 191 a more sombre hue. He saw only laborions, toiling, suffering humanity, contending with nature for a miserable existence, tugging at the oar of sordid gain, and wasting the brief capability of sweet sensation which lies between the cradle and the grave, to provide, when most successfdl, for the vices of some spendthrift heir : —to perish in lonely penury and friendlessness, if it toils in vain. He put up his glass, and, among the grove of masts, the tricoloured flag of the new Belgian kingdom caught his eye. He accepted the omen as coincident with the counsels of the mysterious letter, and gave him- self up to the packet agents, who were already at his side. When Sir Frederick descended from his carriage, he left everything, as had been the habit of his travelling life, to his servant ; and suffered himself to be led through the narrow descent of the Tower-stairs, by one of those who wait there to secure the confused and ignorant passenger. *' This way, my lord — this way, sir ! Ostend, sir, isn^t it ? Sails in ten minutes. The Talbot, sir ; the finest vessel on the station. Beautiful 192 THE PRINCESS. weather, sir; wind fair. That is our boat coming' up to the stairs.'^ " My servant and carriage,'* muttered Sir Frederick, almost led by the arm by the agent of the packet, yet shrinking from the coarse contact, and holding to his mouth his hand- kerchief breathing of eau de CyprCy which could not exclude the stench of other eaux of less agreeable perfume. " Ay, ay, sir — ^never mind : I '11 see all safe ! We have several carriages on board already. Ill just see you into the boat, and then be back to look after your servant. Excellent break- fasts on board, sir. What name, if you please, su-?^ " sir Frederick Mottram.*** " Your servants, sir ?*' " Lawrence Pegan.'* " Sir Frederick Mottram and Lawrence Fe- gan — Ay, ay, that will do, sir ! Now, sir, if you please, give me your arm. Hope you won't . forget the agent."" Sir Frederick mechanically put his hand in his pocket and gave the man half-a-crown. He seated himself in the boat ; but the boatmen still THE PRINCESS. 193 waited, on seeing another coach drive up to the gate. Sir Frederick ordered them to put off, in a manner that convinced them that they would be well paid for neglecting the new ar- rival. He was already almost sea-sick. His imagi- native recollection of never-failing suffering on all such previous occasions, the exhaustion incidental to want of rest and over-excitement, contributed to nauseate him to the uttermost prostration of mind and volition. On reaching, therefore, the Talbot, his only desire was to obtain a sofa and escape from the deck, which resembled a Noah's ark, and was already en- cumbered with numerous vehicles. He was therefore forthwith conducted into the den called the gentlemen'^s cabin, and placed on one of those hard horse-hair seats, by courtesy dignified with the appellation of a sofa. Even before the steam-engine had given its preliminary shake to the vessel, or its paddles commenced their play, sounds and objects of disgust multiplied on every side, distressing to one whose most delicate and fastidious nerves had hitherto been spared such annoyances. VOL. I. K 194 THE PRINCESS. ** Orribili faYelle, Parole di dolore^ accenti d'ira Alti e fiochiy" echoed on every side ; yet he soon ceased to hear them ; for he slept, or rather fell into that agitated and disturbed doze which wearied nature forces from suffering sensation, without abating its uneasiness. The vessel had been advertised to sail at seven, but it was. now past eight, and yet the anchor was not heaved. Boat was chasing boat, filled with tardy passengers, till the deck was crowded like the black-hole of Calcutta ; but Lawrence Fegan and the carriage were not yet arrived. The latter was on its way back, under convoy of the postilion, to its station in the coach-house on Carlton-terrace ; while the former still stood, the stare and the amusement of the idle group gathered round the iron gates of the Custom-house. There are few heads that can stand a sudden revolution of Fortune, or gaze undazzled at the flash of the bright side of her wheel. Heads far sounder and wiser than that of Lawrence Fegan have mounted and grown dizzy, under THE PRINCESS. 196 the influence of some sadden change which has raised straggling industry and hopeless and unproductive labour to places of high trust, to power, wealth, and distinction. Churchmen have never passed the ordeal unscathed. The Wol- seys, the Lauds, and the Richelieus, were not proof against their dizzy elevation ; and in Ire- land there is a see, representing the power of the church of old times, with whose mitre a strait- waistcoat is almost proverbially associated. The change recently undergone by the red- shanked Garlogh of Shanballymac, (for he was one whose brand of bastardy had never been effaced in the estimation of his native village) — by the boy who had been ** up the mountain,^' the echappi of the police-station at Mallow, — ^the fifer of the Coldstreams, — ^the maimed tiger of a neg- lectful master, — ^the patient of many hospitals, — the helper of the helpers of many stables, — was, to him, what the mitre of York was to the butcher's son, or the crowning in the Capitol to Cola di Rienzi: it had upset him ! His morning's drive ; the partipg stirrup-cup, presented by the postilion at the door of the Thames-street porter-house, as he gave his 196 THE PRINCESS* orders with the pedantry of new inauguration to office, had assisted to eonftise the head and bewilder the spirits of the Irish Sganarelle beyond all power of composure. ^' Take the carriage back quiet and aisy to Carlton-terrace,'*'* he said, " with my respects to the under-coachman, and my love to the second house-maid, and tell her I will send her a pretty present from fiirren parts, if one can be had for love or money .''^ " Here, sir, ish a very pretty present any lady in the land might be proud to vear,^^ said a long-bearded impersonation of the twelve tribes of Israel to Fegan, as the carriage drove off; and he dazzled his eyes with the display of a long and massive chain. " It ish all pure gold, mishter — virgin gold, I declare to my God ! and only vone shovereign ! — ^it will sell for double the monish."*' " Here ish what his honour wants more than a chain,'"* said one of the children of Zion, and evidently the son of him of the golden chain — " Here ish the most beautifullest new travelling cloak and cap ; and here ish a real gentleman'^s dress-coat, fit for any noblemans in London : I THE PRINCESS. 197 bought it of the vally-de-sham of a great lord only lasht night.'' Lawrence was taken all alive, with all his weaknesses and all his vanities, his new and high aspirations, full upon him ! Reason, with her specious sophistry, furnished him with ready excuses for yielding to the temptations of folly. As groom, he was provided with a livery frock, it was true ; but, as valet'de-chambre^ as ' tra- velUng and confidential upper man,' the rank in which his fertile imagination had placed him, he was deficient in all the necessary para- phernalia. The idea passed, with the rapidity with which thought ever passes in an Irish head, when mounted by vanity and upset by ambition. He saw himself riding in the morn- ing in his groom's frock, and figuring in his own clothes in the evening, after he had dressr- ed his master. The cloak also, with it& black and silken braids and tassels, and the showy cap, with its foreign cut and its golden band, were temptations unutterable, irresistible. The struggle between vanity and prudence was but momentary. He had four sovereigns in his pocket, being nearly the whole of a sum 198 THE PRINCESS. advanced to him for the pnrchase of linen by the house-steward. He looked at the defroque of the great lord ; he examined the cloak and cap ; and then, with a glance of cool, sly dis- trust, and with that self-satisfied Irish shrewd- ness which made him believe he could out- jew a Jew, he exclaimed, " Ah ! be aisy now, Mr. Shedrech, Misheek, and Abednigo ! Have I time to stand bargain- ing about your ould clouths, and the Right Honourable Sir Frederick Mottram, my master, waiting there below, talking to the captain of the ship ? Man alive ! ^ time and tide stops for no man,^ as the saying is.'' Fegan cast an eye where his master was still standing, and satisfied himself that, as the steam was not up, he might delay a little longer : he remained, therefore, with the coat in his hands, while his imagination gloated upon the cloak and cap. " Now, what would you be afther axing," he said, ^' for the whole boiling, if a man was Judy enough to be willing to take it off your hands ?" " Five guinish — ^and the gould band vill bum for more," said the father. THE PRINCESS. 199 " You are giving it for nothing/' cried the son, reprovingly. " Five guineas ! — five devils !*' said Larry ; " I think I see myself, you ould Judas Is- cariot !" He did not, however, suit the action exactly to the word ; for he placed the cap on his head, with the air with which Napoleon seized the iron crown of Italy ; and turning to a little mirror in th6 basket of a pale-faced Italian boy, who was looking on, he arranged it to his fancy. Never did any mirror of dandy royalty, from Brighton to Petersburg, reflect a more self- sufficient or more self-satisfied form. Nor was the feeling altogether without foundation : his tall, well-framed figure became the cloak ; and his very Irish face well suited the gaillardise of his foreign cap. ** Well, thin, what will you be afther taking for the cloak and cap, without any ftirther jaw- ing ? for the tay-kittle there will be soon boil- ing, and I must be off like a shot.'^ " Veil, sir, as God is my shuge, three shove- reigns is the lowest farthing ; I vouldnH take lesh from my own fader, if I vash to die for it.'' 200 THE PRINCESS. " It aVt worth the money,'' said Larry, doubtingly, his eye fixed on the looking-glass. " Here 's one von't think so,'' replied the Jew lad, pointing to a showy carriage that bowled up to the gate : " the Irish vally-de-sham on that 'ere coach offered ns more monish yesterday." " Here "s yonr money," said Larry, in a hur- ried tone ; " and let's have no more of your gosthering." Delighted with his bargain, he was hastening away to the packet, when the Jew boy ran after him with the coat, crying, " Misther ! misther ! the^packetsh von't sail this half hour; dere 's plenty of time ; von't you buy dish beautiftd coat ? Look at it, sir ; itsh a lovely coat ! Try it ; and if it don't fit you, you shall have it for nothing." The alternative was too tempting. He looked at the coat, and then at the Jew boy : '' Well, sir j I will thry it, just to plaze you." He gave the cloak to the boy to hold, and addressing a well-looking loimger who stood carelessly observing the transaction, he added, " Might I be afbher throubling you to hould my coat, sir, for a minute ?'^ It was to little purpose that Larry labour- THE PRINCESS. 201 ed to invest himself with the toga of genti- lity ; no effort could stretch it to the propor- tions of a far different stature from that for which it was made. Irritated by the fear of being too late in his attendance on his master, enraged at being mystified by the Jew boy (whose mirth had got the better of his cupidity), and disappointed at missing the bargain his va- nity had counted upon as concluded, he flung the coat at the owner^s head, and, snatching the cloak out of his hands, he burst out, " Why, thin, ye grinning galoot ! is it aLepra- haun you Ve thinking I am, or one of the good people, that you would impose on me a screed of a jerkin, that was made for some midge of a cratur like your black-muzzled self? Give me my things, sir, if you .... Why, what 's gone of the young gintleman that ''s houlding my coat ?'''' A general laugh from the by-standers replied to the question. Fegan looked round with dis- may ; the ' young gentleman'' had disappeared. The bell from the vessel tolled forth its imme- diate departure. " Last boat for the Talbot, gentlemen !'' cried the agent. " Now or never !'^ k5 202 THE PRINCESS. The boat was already thronged ; but Pegan still stood, the image of constemation and despair. He had neither hat nor coat. The boat put off. " Never nund, master,^' said a wherry-man, touching Larry**8 arm with his dripping oar; *' 1 11 put you aboard before the other boat can get there. Here, give me your hand. Hot wea- ther, sir ; but put on your cloak, all the same.**^ The n^xt moment, wrapped in his cloak, his head scarcely covered by his cap, Fegan was seated in the boat. Misfortune had sobered him : his position overwhelmed him. The vessel had cast loose ; the steam, which, a moment before, had poured forth in rushing volumes, suddenly ceased ; and the paddles commenced their din- ning rounds. Hurrying on board, he was obliged to double the waterman^s ordinary fare ; and, fearing to encounter his master, he skulked for« ward among the servants and other tenants of what is called the second cabin. Never was there made a more unprosperous voyage between the Thames and Ostend than that now performed, save only the one in which the imseaworthy Talbot was wrecked off THE PRINCESS. 203 the Flemish coast, a few weeks afterwards. The substitution of this boat for the regular packet of the station, was one of those risks to which the British public is subjected more than the people of any other nation in Europe. She had been the first vessel that ever had plied 'to Ostend on the commencement of steam navigation ; and the inferior construction of her engine, no less than the wear and tear of the hulk itself, rendered her a slow and danger- ous sailer. She was now, it was said, taken up to supply a sudden emergency ; and her crew and appointments were as occasional as herselfi The cabin was crowded to sufPoc^tion ; the deck was choked with carriages; and before the ship had cleared the river, the weather, which had been squally, became decidedly foul. Instead of fulfilling its promise of arriving that night, it was late in the following morning when the ship made its port, and gave up the ghosts of its wearied and sickened passengers, (pale, comfortless, but too happy to escape &om their ' prison with the risk of being drowned") to the gaze of the loungers on the quay of Os- tend. 204 THE PRINCESS. 4( CHAPTER VI. OSTEND. Letter to messrs. harris, williams, and co. Lincoln's inn, London. . Hotel, Ostend. " Sir Frederick Mottram desires that a hundred-pound bank post-bill may be for- warded to him, at the above address, instanter. " Should Mr. Harris have left town for Mottram Hall, the person who represents him in his office is requested to open the enclosed, and act upon it immediately •'' (^Enclosure,) "Ostend, Waterloo Hotel. " Dear Harris, — ^Send me, without loss of time, a letter of credit for a thousand pounds upon some house in Brussels ; (the hundred-pound post- bill, without a moment's delay.) Take the trouble of going to Carlton-terrace, and seeing SaunderSt THE PRINCESS, 205 Desire him to bring me my travelling-carriage, just as it IS : I have the keys. If he does not find me here, he is to proceed with post-horses to the Bellevue, at Brussels, " I am. in the most infernally awkward posi- tion here that man ever was; but have not time for particulars, as I send this by a gentle^ man who is just starting for England by way of Calais. The post does not leave this most melancholy place till Saturday. " You will receive my letter on Thursday night or Friday morning, and I hope before you start for Mottram Hall ; that is, if you have not already heard that I had left London for the Continent, — ^to your great surprise, of course, as to my own. A sea-voyage was ne- cessary to my health, and has already, I think, done me good : but the benefit derived is scarcely worth the purchase. " I need not urge your immediate attention to this importunate request for money. I am here without a shilling, without a change of linen, or even a razor ; owing to the blunders, and per- haps drunkenness, of a new Irish servant, who sent back the carriage which took me to Tower- stairs, instead of putting it on board. e06 THE PRINCESS. '' The fact is, I am in pledge (and so is my watch), under a suspicion of belonging to the anny of English scamps, who make this miser- able place a refuge from bailiffs and policemen. My servant, too, to mend the matter, is before the juge de paix^ accused of having stolen a cloak and a cap from a courier ; and being (I know not how or why) without coat or hat, (which he lost at the moment of embarkation,) is suspected of having escaped firom the Hulks at Woolwich. The waiter is at my elbow, to take this to the gentleman who bears it ; therefore I can only add, that I am, " Yours, &c. ^^ Fbedebick Mottram.^^ Letter II, '^ TO HORACE HARVEY, ESQ. Hotel, Ostend. " Dear Horace, — If you are amazed at the date of this letter, so am I. Talk of free will and moral responsibility ! But, to the point and purpose. I wish I could have anticipated the espionage of the newspapers, (which throws THE PRINCESS. 207 every man^s privacy open to the vulgar gaze of the meddling worid, and which, by this time, has bruited to all liurope my departure from England, with all sorts of absurd and venomous additions ;) and that it had been possible to give you an earlier account of my unpremeditated escape from that modem Babylon, London. " I arrived here yesterday, just in time to scrawl a few lines to my man of business, for money; being most strangely without a shil- ling, actually provided with the necessaries of life by the confiding charity of strangers, and obliged to wait till Harris sends me the means of departure. Here I am, therefore, at Ostend, till the packet of Saturday arrives — except Mr. Fauche, (the British Consul, and an old Vienna friend,) should return from Brussels in the inte- rim, where he most unfortunately is now absent. I have time enough, therefore, at my disposi^ tion to detail all my movements and predica- ments. " When I last wrote, it was in the hope of soon meeting you at Mottram Hall. Every- thing was prepared for departure on Tuesday morning ; my carriage packed, my nicessatre^ 208 THE PRINCESS. money, books, &c. 8cc. all stowed in, and the horses bespoke ; and having indulged Lady Frances in her whim of givii^g a breakfast at the Willows, before it was sold or let, I arranged that she should follow me, and that poor Emi- lius should be wholly left in the hands of his doctors and preceptor. I paired off with Winterbottam, and returned from the House earlier than usual, that I might write to you, and get through some other business: and I found my house a rendezvous of the elect, returning from a dSjeiinS at Norwood. Romp- ing, carried on to the very verge of licen- tiousness, and high play, constituted the busi- ness of the night ; and a new game, called a racing-table, (which has been recently intro- duced to shorten the process of ruin,) was in fiiU activity. " There is a pretty little apartment in the farther end of the suite, which, pedantically enough, I have called the Tribune ; because it contains the two Titians, the Murillos, the Chandos Correggio, with Canova^s Venus, which he executed for me when I was in Rome. But I cannot go on ! Perhaps I should have treated the whole thing as an enfantillage : for this asso- THE PRINCESS* 209 ciation of middle-aged matrons and foolish yomig men is the most puerile thing imaginable ; — the men, from constant frequenting such coteries, being as trivial as the women, and the women borrowing the free tone of the men. " In aggravation of such a meeting in such a place, Master Claude Hamilton and his play- fellows had mutilated and disfigured Canova's superb work ; and that female Mephistophiles, the Princess of SchaiFenhausen, stood presiding over the whole mischief, in her wizard dress and veiled face, notwithstanding Lady Frances's solemn promises to the contrary. I could not control myself. I was mad ! acted like a madman ; and, imder the influence of I know not what spell — ^led by a sort of anonymous let- ler, counselling me to the hasty step I have taken— ordered the horses to the Tower-stairs, instead of the great north road, and embarked for Ostend. " Here I am, then, and hope to hear from you at Brussels, through which I must pass, go where I will ; but where that will be, I neither know nor care. Make no allusion, how- ever, to the incidents I have touched on solely for your information. I want a total change 210 THE PRINCESS. and regeneration of body and mind. I have done with the past, and am without one view for the fiitiire. " My present situation, (the last, one would think, reserved for a man with a rent-roll of twenty thousand a year,) if it was not so very provoking, would be very amusing, from its ex- treme absurdity. I arrived here after the most dreadful passage I ever made, and was almost carried on shore by the steward of the packet, who delivered me into the hands of I know not who : but there was music in the man''s voice, for it spoke of a bath and a bed. I plunged from one to the other, with a luxury of sensation dearly purchased, but still beyond price. I had desired the person who attended me to the hotel, to send my servant with dressing things, &c. &c. €is soon as he had landed the carriage ; and, waiting for him, I got from the bath to the bed, and so dropped asleep. Such a sleep ! I have enjoyed none to equal it for many years ; deep, dreamless, death in counterfeit ! I believe I should have slept on till now, but that I was awakened by the sharp voice of a pert English waiter, to know whether I meant to travel by the diligence or the treckschuyt. I was some THE PRINCESS. 21 1 time awakening to a perfect recollection of my situation, and almost unconsciously answered ' Neither; " * Then,' he replied rudely, ' you had better get up.' " I did get up ; started sur mon &iant ; or- dered him to send my servant, and leave the room instantly. *^ ' Servant !' he replied ; ' there is no servant in the house, but the servant of the Hon. Patrick O'Reiley, who had been left by his friends with their carriage, as security for an impaid bill.' " ' My servant,' I said, * is, or should be, with the carriage, if it is not yet landed.' " The fellow grinned, and was making some impertinent reply, when a sailor-looking man bolted into the room, and asked ' if I was the gentleman who called himself Sir Frederick Mottram ; because, if so be, the Hirishman what was aboard the Talbot was tooked up for prigging a cloak and cap, and he had sent me that note. « It was a dirty piece of unfolded paper, which I copy for its curiosity : — *' 'Sir Friderick, — There's the greatest de- struction going on, and sarious murthur, if you don't come to my pertection immaidiately. \ 212 THE PRINCESS. They have me up, plaze your honor, before a frinch justis of pace, that ha'nH a word of english in his mouth, no more nor a dog, and is swearing away the life o"* me about a cloak I lawfully bought of a jew ; and if you don't come to my help and salvation, Sir Frederick — I'^m innocent as the child unborn, who is * Your faithftil servant till death, ' L. f; " I desired the porter to say I would follow him immediately. He asked me for something for his trouble ; but I had given all the loose money about me to the steward of the packet, and actually had not a shilling on my person. The insolent waiter grinned and left the room, and I had to dress myself in the horrid clothes I had worn on board the packet. I never in my life was reduced to such personal inconve- nience : you know that no man has ever roughed it less. I was still dressing, when the landlord entered the room, and civilly asked me for my passport. I had none : in my impatience to be off, I had never thought of it. The landlord looked suspiciously, which added not a little to THE PRINCESS. £13 mj impatient anger ; and I could not refrain from a boutade on the sort of liberty afforded by the new revolutionary government. The fellow was muttering something about the alien act in Eng- land and necessary precaution ; but I cut him short, by desiring him to show me to the hotel of the British Consul, Mr. Fauche. As the devil would have it, he had gone that day to Brus- sels, and was not expected for a week. ' What is to be done ?"" I said. " ' You must return, I fear,' said the land- lord, ' by the first opportunity. Here is a little bill prepared by my clerk, as we unluckily want this rooni, which is bespoke for a gentleman from Ghent."* " The bill for coffee, bed, bath, &c. was under a pound; and yet I had not wherewith to discharge it. I told the man briefly the state of the case, and that I must remain in his cursed house, either till I got remittances from England, till the return of Mr. Fauche, or till some English family arrived whom I might know. The expression of the landlord'^s coun- tenance provoked me so, that — but the whole thing is too absurd. — I observed. 214 THE PRINCESS. ^^ ^ As such things must rarely happen here, you may be incredulous, and "* '' ^' ^ Oh dear, no !** he interrupted flippantly ; ' nothing so common. Gentlemen yery fre- quently arrive at Ostend in the same situation. We have now in the house, the Hon. Mr. O'Reiley, who was left with a carriage in bail for twenty poimds, by his father, when he was suddenly called home. There are two or three other gentlemen whom you^ll meet walking on the ramparts, and who landed here much in the same predicament.** *' You see that I was at once put down on the list, with the Hon. Mr. CReiley and the gentlemen that walk the ramparts, by Jove ! You can have no idea of my annoyance ! Only conceive a man thus circumstanced, when he really and truly is without means ; and owes his distress, not to accident, but to his own folly — or, worse still, his unmerited misfortune ! Good Heavens ! The reflection passed rapidly through my mind, and calmed me : but I could not get over the mortification that there should be no- thing in my appearance, or manner, to bear witness in my favour. Oh ! how small a part THE PRINCESS. 215 of life and its vicissitudes is known to the pros- perous and the rich ! " As the man (who, after all, was perfectly justified in his caution, and was as civil as a man could be, who saw before him a scamp that had used his bed, bath, and breakfast, and had nothing to pay in return,) talked of a pledge, I pointed to my watch and seals, which lay on the table, and are worth an hundred guineas. ' Perhaps,' I said, ' you will take charge of that for a day or two, until I can hear from Lon- don. I will write this moment, and send to Brussels to our ambassador for a passport.' *' The man took up the watch and admired it ; looked at the seals, arms, crest, and cipher, — then at me, — ^but still doubtftdly. It did not appear that his suspicions were removed ; and my indignation could hold no longer. I was in the very act of turning the man out of his own apartment, when my servant burst into it, fol- lowed by a fashionably-dressed but vulgarish young man. " Of the handsome, smart (rather too smart) groom, who left London with me the day be- fore, there was not a trace. Fegan was in his 216 THE PRINCESS. shirt-sleeves ; his face smeared and smoked with the grime of the steam-den, where he had been thrust when suspected of the robbery — ^for he was found on board dressed in a cloak and cap belonging to a courier, both of which had been stolen jfrom Thomas'^s Hotel a day or two before. All that could be seen of poor Fegan's com- plexion bore the green and yellow tint of sea- sickness. His features were distorted by rage, and his black head was powdered with ashes. He rushed abruptly into the room, pushing aside the landlord ; whose respect for the mas- ter could not have been much increased by the appearance of the man. " ' I ax your honor's pardon. Sir Frederick,"* he said, ' for appearing before you, sir, like a poor Connaught spalpeen begging back his way home afther a bad harvest. But I just wish you to jidge, sir, the intire murthur and destruction those vil- lians and Tories have brought on me ; robbing me on the quays of my hat and livery-coat, and making me a re^aiver of stolen goods, and hang- ing me outright : to say nothing of the plunder, and the shame, and the intire disgreece : and if it wamH for a greet Irish nobleman and his THE PRINCESS. 217 Leedy and the Docther here — ^long life to them ! it's hung up I'd he, this day, in a fiirren land, like the poor hoy that was stepping out on the gallows we left behind us in London. And plaze your honor, in regard of the cloak and cap, if I was dying this day, before God and his blessed Mother, and the Docther here, I bought them honestly, — ^and.the pride of me who has nothing but character and my honour, Sir Fre- derick — oh musha, musha !' " Here poor Fegan's convulsive emotion ab- solutely stifled him; and the stranger, smiling, and putting him gently on one side, said — ^ There, that 's my good fellow ! go and wasH yourself:' and turning to the landlord, he added — ' Let this poor man want nothing ; Sir Ignatius and Lady Dogherty, and myself, are answerable for him. I believe I have the ho- nour of addressing Sir Frederick Mottram ? I am Doctor Rodolf de Burgo, travelling with my friends Sir Ignatius and Lady Dogherty. The name cannot be unknown to you. Too happy if we can be of service ; — am desired to say so, on the part of my friends. Under- stand the whole thing, sir, from what your VOL. I. L 218 THE PRINCESS. servant has said : — ^hany of departure ; mistake of the carriage, and all that. Had the pleasure of hearing you speak in the House the night before we left London ; in great force. Went there with my firiend Spring Rice. As to your servant, you must see the thing at once ; it was simply this: Jewed by a Jew; bought stolen goods ; taken up. Fortunately I was passing at the time and heard the row. My compatriot was rather obstreperous. Three gen- darmes could hardly keep him down. He re- cognized me, poor fellow ! I knew him when he lived with my jGriend Jack Aubrey de Vere, of ours. I was then surgeon of the regiment. But all is settled. The courier is off to Brus- sels, satisfied to get back his things. His name was embroidered in the inside of the cloak. I stepped forward in poor Paddy'^s behalf. And so there the matter ends. Can I be of further service ?** ^' Although I did not altogether like the manner and abord of this flashy, but rather clever-looking person, I availed myself of the accident, to explain to him my position. No- thing could surpass his civility. He and Sir THE PRINCESS. 219 Ignatius Dogherty, whom I have not yet seen, have answered for everything. The Doctor has given Fegan a coat of his own; and, strange to say, now that he is dressed in it, he resembled the Doctor amazingly. I, for my part, am in-^ debted for much accommodation to these good- natured people ; and I have since purchased a handsome nScessatre de toilette^ with money ad- vanced by the landlord on my watch. Being now satisfied that I am a man of fortune, an M.P. &c. &c., he is covered with shame and re-' morse, and wanted to return the pkdge* which I refused. '^ My new acquaintance have asked me to dine, and sent their cards and note of invitation in form ; but I have declined. They remain here another day, on account of the lady's health, who is an invalid ; but I don't want to add to the weight of the obligation, or to make an intimacy which may turn out, in the long* run, to be excessively a charge. The landlord has undertaken to provide me linen, and procure Fegan a new livery. I must stay here for my remittance ; and am just as well at Ostend as anywhere else. The tranquil solitude of these l2 220 THE PRINCESS. moss-grown streets, the sea, the air, the few simple Flemish faces passing my window, are all novelties. All the horrid English crew of the packet are off, in coach or boat, and have left the world of Ostend to silence and to me. ^' I shall write to you again from this, when I have made up my mind to something certain, so as to be able to give you an address. In the mean time, as ever. Yours, " P. MOTTBAM."''' " P. S. I fancy that no spark of the ' glorious four days'* has fallen upon the remote region of Ostend. I don't think that they have the least suspicion that they have changed kings and governments. It is, very literally, the fable of the Frogs. How I nauseate the idea of Brus- sels !-i— e^ pour cause, I shall merely await my carriage there. The route from this place by Bruges and Ghent is new to me. In returning from Brussels, in Twenty-nine, we took the Calais road, which, I remember, was dreary and monotonous. Most probably I shall push on to the north of Germany. I have a carriage building at Frankfort — suppose I go for it ? I really have no more important object in view, go where I may. Once more farewell, P. M.'" THE PRINCESS. 2^1 CHAPTER VII. THE DOOHEBTIES. The particular family of the human race from which the Milesian Irish derive their de- scent, and the period of their arrival in Ireland, • are points which have been much and long dis- puted. The learning, the patriotism, the piety, and the pedantry of the country, have for a thousand years been employed unavailihgly on the subject ; and in that vast lapse of time, the Irish have suffered the indignity of seeing their penates shifted from Spain to France, to Eng- land — ^and, in spite of Sir Callaghan CBral- laghan, to Scotland. If Giraldus Cambrensis, Nennius, Keating, C'Halloran, and Vallancey, with their various disciples, have fought the battle on the bloodless but obstinate field of controversy with doubtful result, Sir William Betham, the most recent of Irish antiquaries, has not been deterred from the attempt to set 222 THE PRINCESS. the matter at rest (if such questions can ever be set at rest) ; and the evidence he has brought to establish that the Milesians are part and parcel of the great Gallo -British hive, which was known to Caesar by the appellation of Celts, if. not absolutely convincing, is of great weight and credibiUt j. " The Celts,^ says Caesar, " are handsome in their appearance, but their voices are dis- agreeable/^ (So would the Irish accent of the present day, perhaps, appear to the refined •Italian ear of some modem Caesar.) '^ In their conversation they are brief and enigmatical [evasive], and they generally adopt mere allu- sion. They speak extravagantly when setting forth theb own merits ; but with contempt when they touch on the merits of others. They are proud, vain, and fond of exaggera- tion ; but of acute understanding, and apt to learn.'' Whoever has lived much in Ireland, must perceive in this ancient portraiture of the Celts a strong resemblance to some of her sons, — ^the living representatives of a race which, unchanged and unchangeable, still flows through the ge- THE PRINCJ^S. 228 neral population, like a stream of £resh water through the briny sea. It is unnecessary for the modem historian to alter a trait, to add a tint, or to deface a lineament. The red Dane, the fair Anglo-Norman, the small eyed, canny Scotch undertaker, the English adyenturer, all distinctly marked by their own several physical peculiarities, make way for the impetuous course of the Celt, who, in the battle field abroad, in the row at home, in the cell of monkish learning, or in the cabinet of astute politics, (subtile but bold, sly but daring,) is still the same as when he fir^ issued from the *' great foundery of creation.^ There he is, as Gsesar has depicted his ancestorgi in Gaul, and as Henry the Second found them in Ireland. To the foreign student of the physiological antiquities of man, to a Cuvier or a Humboldt, it might have be^n a treat of the highest order, had they encountered a fragment of the Celtic race, which fate or folly, necessity or ' a truant disposition,^ had conducted to the shores of Belgium contemporaneously with the arrival of Sir Frederick Mottram. The family of the Dogherties, like so many 2^4 THE PRINCESS. other of the primeval tanists of Ireland, had, in the process of time, of native anarchy, and of foreign oppression, fallen from their high estate; and while some remained at home to submit in subtile servility to the intruders who had displaced them, others, of a more unbending spirit, had emigrated to foreign lands in search of independence, of adventure, or of bread. The latter had been the fortune of Gene- ral Sir Shane CDogherty, a favourite in the court of the Empress Maria Theresa. He had fought the battles of despotism, wherever liberty had raised its standard, during the course of sixty years ; and having recently died in a garret at Vienna, covered with scars and decorated with orders, was buried by the cha- rity of an Irish priest, and was forgotten by all save a second cousin twice removed, who claim- ed the reversion of the title, and had long watched, by every attainable means, the de- cline of its venerable and valiant possessor. This cousin was Sir Ignatius Dogherty, now of Shanballymac House, in the county of Kerry. Among the mouldering ruins of the once bustling port of Ostend, rises a beautiful struc- THE PRINCESS. 225 ture, called the Pavilion des Bains, erected by enterprise and taste on those ancient ramparts, so often covered with hostile phalanxes, but at present exhibiting on summer evenings a scene of as much peace and loveliness as ever was set off by the cloudless sunshine of a summer^s sky. Within this pavilion, poring over the news of Europe, or dipping into its periodical litera- ture, sat some of the native quidnuncs of the town, and one or two Englishmen who had not altogether consulted their own choice in making Ostend their residence. Some took coffee, others tea, and others contented themselves with en- joying the place and weather firom the windows. Without, upon the esplanade, moved a bevy of English nursery-maids with their noisy charges ; for, alas ! noisy children will be found wherever there are pleasant walks and sunshine. Their happy mothers, dressed in Manchester mushns and Dunstable bonnets, gloated on the promising offspring ; and the bathing-women looked up from their bathing-boxes upon the new arrivals with the sordid calculation of anticipated gain. Distinct from all these, sat Sir Ignatius l6 226 THE PRINCESS. Dogherty and his party, betraying, amidst gome diversity of feature, a general and common out- line and character which marked them the descendants of a common stock. There was indeed an indescribable simihtude of expression in the countenance of Sir Ignatius and Lady Dogherty, their travelling physician Dr. de Burgo, and their self-instituted attendant 'for the nonce,^ Lawrence Fegan^ which might have puzzled a physiognomist ; though the craniologist, perhaps, would have detected the organ of self^ esteem in equally full development in all. The Lady Dogherty, or (as die pronounced the name of the ancient chiefe of Enis Owen) Lady Dorty, sat preeminent in the group which graced the £ii<9ade of the pavilion, Ml of the poetry of nationality. She was dressed in the prevailing hue of the ^ first gem of the sea f and in the produce of its looms. Her emerald-green tabinet pelisse, trimmed knee-deep with ermine, contrasted its faded winter glories with a sum* mer hat, set off by a bunch of field flowers that were not precisely from the carton of a French emballeur. The costume, both in its solidity and flauntiness, was illustrative of the person and character of the wearer. THE PRINCESS, 2St To the right of Lady Dogherty sat Sir Ignatius. If not the last of ' the rakes of Mallow,^ (those jolly sporting Irishmen who gave their name to the merriest melody in Irish music,) he might have served for a tolerable type of that now extinct order. His jacket was bottle-green ; his buttons of the brightest hms»; his vest was variegated aa the garment of Ben- jamin. His trutsy (to use an old Irish name for an habiliment which delights in no niore recent appellation at all suited to the molles auricula of modem ton,) his truis were buckskin^ and his boots topped. His hat, if not top small for his head, was so worn as scarcely to cover it ; and his cravat, by its voluminous folds, rivalled that of Banagher, — ^an Irish beau of proverbial celebrity, of whom it is traditionally reported, that his band, contained " nine stone of starch r Sir Ignatius leaned as he sat on a very curi- ously knotted stick, a middle term between the English club and the Irish shilelagh ; and rest- ed a very rubicund cheek upon a still redder hand. Lawrence Fegan stood in waiting be- hind Sir Ignatius with a look of deference and pride ; and all were listening to the discourse of 228 THE PRINCESS. an eloquent narrator, who was holding forth un- disturbed and uninterrupted, except by the occa- sional commentaries of his admiring auditors. This orator was Doctor Rodolf de Burgo. He stood with his finger inserted between the pages of a Guide-book; and was giving a rather detailed account of the geography, topography, and his- tory of the town of Ostend, with the conscious air of unborrowed knowledge, and the tone and attitude of an improvisatore. " You now occupy, I may say,'** declaimed the Doctor, " the most westerly point of Europe.'*'' " The most westerly,'*' he repeated doubtingly to himself; " that is, le plus oriental^ " See that !'*' said Sir Ignatius. '* WeU, 'pon my daisy ! I always thought that West Port, in county Mayo, was the most westerly point of the Uropian world : where the Marquis of Sligo lives, you know yourself. Doctor."*' " I said, easterly,'*' said the Doctor, referring to his book. " Troth, ye didn'*t !" said Sir Ignatius, wink- ing at Fegan ; " but nc hoclish ! niver mind — a slip of the tongue '*s no fault of the heart, as we say in Ireland." THE PRINCESS. 229 " And fine sayings there is in it, Sir Ignatius !'*'' said Fegan, touching his hat. '* Sorrow finer i'" said the Baronet, " for thim that has good Irish, and isnH too con^aited in- tirely to spake it like a man/^ " Of coorse, plaze your honour,^** said Fegan, reddening, on the supposition that the Baronet had made a hit at what he deemed his own superlative English accent and phraseology. " Sir Ignatius !'' said his lady, angrily, "pray let the Doctor continue : no book could give you half the very valuable information you are now getting for nothing.'*'' " For nothing !''' sighed Sir Ignatius, (aside ;) *' two hundred a^year and travelling expinses ; and' she calls that nothing ! Oh ! marciful Moses !" Lady Dogherty deposited her cofifee-cup on a salver, which was presented to her by Lawrence Fegan, who had constituted himself on service since he had obtained her protection. " Mr. Fegan,**' said Sir Ignatius, " might I trouble you, at the same time, to get me a little drop of ... . what do you call spurits in German, Doctor ?'' 280 THE PRINCESS. ** Schnaps !^ replied the Doctor, snappishly. ^' Bat we are now gtanding, as I observed, Lady D., on the extreme eastern point of Europe. For the rest, Ostend is four lea^^es from Bruges, three leagues from Nieuport, snd twenty-two leagues from Brussels,^^ " I'll trouble you for small change for Mat,'' said Sir Ignatius. " For what, pray ?" asked the Doctor impa- tiently and peeTishly. " Why, for lagues ; divel such a word iver I met in the Universal * !" ^' A league means three English miles. Sir Ignatius," said the Doctor, smiling at Lady D. ^' The sea washes these ramparts in all seasons. Nothing can be more sublime or picturesque than the ocean- view from them f '^ Och murther V^ groaned Sir Ignatius, look-^ ing up for sympathy to Fegan ; " and the view from the Cove of Cork and the top of Man- gerton!" " The Scluses are also very fine," continued the Doctor: ^^ they serve to discharge the waters of the canal of Bruges, and to resist the incur- sions of the ocean." • Id est, " Universal Spelling-book." THE PRINCESS. 231 « Why thin, 'pon my daisy !'! said Sir Ignatius, " they Ve no great things, no more nor the mare that ran for the whisky, compared to the locks of the Grand Canal, or the Royal, of Dublin; If you seed the thirteenth lock, for instance, or Hazel Hatch, or Puckstown in the county Kildare, it 's Uttle you'd think of thim make be- lieves^ with their Frinch name.'' *' I suppose they are of modern invention ?" said Lady Dogherty. " No," said the Doctor ; " they were built so far back as 1660." » " When was that ?" asked Sir Ignatius, yawning. " This port as you now see it," continued the Doctor with the emphasis of a cicerone, and overlooking or disregarding the embarrassing question of his patron, " is a monument of Joseph the Second." " Who was Joseph ?" asked the persevering Sir Ignatius pertinaciously. " The Emperor of XJermany," said the Doc- tor petulantly. " Are we in Germany now, Doctor ?" asked Sir Ignatius. " If you will stand where I am. Lady Dogher- 282 THE PRINCESS. ty,^ continued the Doctor, " and make use of this telescope, you will perceive that the coast of Ostend forms a straight line. The entrance of the basin is difficult, and the vessels ajre obliged to pass between two jetties by an open- ing so narrow, that the attempt is dangerous when the wind is contrary.**' " May the divel fly away with them for jet- ties !^ said Sir Ignatius with ill humour ; '^ for it is to thim we owe that bumping and thumping, and throwing up the lives out of us-nsaving your prisince, my lady ! — with that «ay-sicknes8 that's left me as wake as a child.'' " Oh musha ! no wonder," exclaimed Fegan, with a deep sigh. "Where you see the flag, Lady D. is the point of embarkation for England," observed Doctor de Burgo. " I wouldn't care, thin, if I was embarking back this blessed evining," said Sir Ignatius, under the peevish reaction of his rum punch and glass of schnaps, addressing himself to Fegan : *' and if I thought I could get by long say from this to Shannon harbour, I wouldn^t desire better than to lave this ould raggamuffin place with the first fair wind !" THE PRINCESS. 233 *' It would be great luck, Sir Ignatius; for Ostend is a poor pleece surely, sir,**' said Ijarry, touching his hat and making a grimace of con- tempt; "and of coorse no ways compayrable to the Bee of DubHn;' " There is something mighty touching in the ruined greatness of this fine ancient old Flemish^ town," said Lady Dogherty. " I wish the Doctor would give us a Flemish account of it,'' said Sir Ignatius; " for I am sick of having nothing to do in it, and nobody to help me/' " It is a town of great historical interest," said the Doctor. " It was long a place of great importance. In 1588, it was regularly fortified by the Prince of Orange." " The Prince of Orange !" repeated Sir Ig- natius, starting. " See that ! — Well, the world is not wide enough for ould Nosey, any way ! What the divel brought him here !" " But Ostend is most celebrated for the fa- mous siege which the Dutch sustained in it against the Archduke Albert. It lasted three years and three months. The Duke, who fought gallantly, was accompanied by Isabella the Infant of Spain." 284 THE PRINCESS. ** Poor little dear I'' yawned drowsily Sir Ig- natius : '^ they had better have left her in her cradle— poor child T^ ^^ When the Princess adyanced to the spot most exposed to the fire,^^ continued the Doctor, too much occupied in showing off to hear what was said, ^' she wore a cuirass«^^ '< She did right,^ muttered Sir Ignatius; '^ and que^r enough it must have been to see her in it — poor babby !^ ^^ But when we get to Brussels, Lady D., you must read the history of Ostend. I will draw you up a little abridgment of the Low Countries. Suffice it for the present to say, that the Spanish general Spinola took the town in 1604 ; that the Dutch lost, by fire, sword, and pestilence, thirty thousand men; that the be- siegers fired 150,000 coups de canon ; and that the city did not capitulate till it was reduced to a heap of ruins.^^ '^ Divel mend it !^^ exclaimed Sir Ignatius, as he dropped off into a doze, heartily sick (^ the history of Ostend ; while Lawrence Fegan listen-* ed with increasing attention : the Doctor pro- ceeded — THE PRINCESS. 235 ^' The Emperor Charles the Sixth established at Ostend the famous Company for trading with In- dia, which excited so much jealousy in the Dutch and English merchants. In consequence of this riyalry, it was regulated at Ostend in 1731, no, at Yienna,^^ (here the Doctor flung an eye on his book,) '^ that the Company should cease their operations ; and, in one year, two thonsand five hundred inhabitants quitted the city for eyer !^^ A loud snore from Sir Ignatius accused his indijQference to the narration, and suspended its progress. '' What a miraculous memory you have, Doctor !" said Lady Dogherty. " Nothing es- capes you I Your friend Lady Dixon used to say that you were a walking library. How often have we talked of you in our walks by moonlight! She calls you the most talented creature the world ever saw, not excepting her friend Byron, or Tommy Moore ; for she knew them both intimately, and can show their writ- ing in her alburn.'^ ^^ Poor Lady Dixon was partial,^^ said the doctor with a conceited and satisfied smQe,-^ ^' too, too partial.^ 286 THE PRINCESS. Lady Dogherty looked down, and sighed ; after a short pause, she added, '^ She was not insensible to genius. The day I left Brighton she showed me your beautiftil lines on the orange-tree (as good as anything Byron ever wrote) with the happy allusion to that tree bearing at once fruit and flowers. Did you see the lines she wrote underneath ? — * Oh ! woman's heart was made for minstrers hands alone ; By other hands when touch'd, it yields not half its tone.' " " And are you of that opinion, Lady Dog- herty ?"' asked the doctor in a low insinuating tone. ' Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes,** filled up the pause; which was shortly after interrupted by Fegan, who aroused Sir Igna- tius, by gently touching his shoulder, and ob- serving, " I ax your pardon. Sir Ignatius ; but here's my master, the Right Honourable Sir Frederick, coming up towards us.'' Sir Ignatius started and rubbed his eyes. The doctor opened the book he held in his hands, and fell to peruse it with intense abs- traction ; while Lady Dogherty settled her frills and her flowers with a minute attention to effect. THE PRINCESS. 237 The elegant fonn, the easy laisser oiler air, and peculiar character of countenance of Sir Frederick Mottram, would, all over travelled Europe, have stamped him a member of the English aristocratic caste; while the deep melancholy and languid look spread over his face, would, by foreign prejudice, have been ascribed to English morgue : by romance, (such romance as Lady Dogherty'*s,) it was translated into the highest touch of sentimental refine- ment. One only incongruity disturbed the per- fection and unity of his appearance, and that M'as the disproportionate height of his shirt- collar, which rose above his ears, and the profiision of linen that descended even to the extremity of his fingers. He passed on, with a loitering step and folded arms, the observed of all observers, — ^himself observing nothing, and apparently lost in deep abstraction and moody thoughts. " Who is he at all ? what is he ?" asked Sir Ignatius, roused into a perfect ' waking con- sciousness^ by his lady's nudges. *' It is Sir Frederick Mottram," said Lady Dogherty, " our new friend.'^ 1 238 THE PRINCESS. '' Whjj thin, a cou^aited-Iooldng chap he is,^ retnmed Sir I^atius, looking after him. ^' Sorrow know Fd know him again ; and it would be hard for me, since I neyer saw him before, though I lint him my shirt, to oblige the doctor — ^my dress shirt.**^ '' He is an elegant-looking creature,''^ said Lady Dogherty. ^^ When he turns again, the doctor must introduce us."" In the mean time Fegan had run after his master, and haying followed him for some paces bareheaded, at last ventured to address him : — "Them'^s the Irish gintry, Sir Frederick, if you plaze.'' " The who ?^ interrupted Sir Frederick, turning sharply round. " Sir Ignatius and Lady Dogherty, Sir Fre- derick, and Doctor de Burgo, who— ^' " Oh, so ! where are they ?'^ '* Them is they, sir, sitting on the binch forenent the tay-house, hard by convanient, Sir Frederick/' The next moment Sir Frederick stood before the party, and drawing off his hat in a straight line with his head, addressed them in a few THE PRINCESS. 289 words of courtesy and gratitude. Sir Ignatius stood bareheaded, with a look of great defe- rence, notwithstanding LadyDogherty^s nudges, and the example of the doctor, whose sang-froid was evinced by his remaining buried in his book, and (of course) unconscious of the ap- proach of the stranger. When forced, how- eyer, to take cognizance of the fact, the doc- tor's start, look, and close of the volume were a perfect rehearsal of the scene of Joseph Sur- face's surprise on the appearance of Sir Peter. Sir Frederick Mottram's thanks, brief and pi- thy, were soon made ; his apologies soon offered ; and he was already taking up his first position, for escape, when a movement of Lady Dogherty's rendered it impossible. She insisted that he should take Sir Ignatius's place, between herself and Dr. de Burgo : " It is some time. Sir Frederick,'' she said, ^' since I had the honour of meeting you." Sir Frederick, not aware of the circumstance, made a slight inclination of the head to this unexpected recognition. " Oh then, no wonder if you should not re- member it," continued her ladyship with a deep 240 THE PRINCESS. Sigh ; " you must think me greatly changed since then. It was at the Castle, Sir Frederick, on Patrick's night. It was my first saison in Dublin. I was then Miss Kearney, of Fort Kearney, county Kerry. The poor Duke al- ways called me Kate Kearney. You knew the Duke of Richmond, Sir Frederick : one of the best lord-lieutenants, and a talented* creture.'^ ^^ I had that honour ; but I was then quite a boy, and went to Ireland merely for a holiday recreation, with my tutor."*' " There niver was such a viceroy, nor niver will, past, present, or to come !" said Sir Igna- tius. '^ He was at our house during the whole of his visit to Killamey, with his shute, and the young A. B. C.'s. as they signed themselves in the book in our bar." ^' Hem ! an album !" said Lady Dogherty, nudging Sir Ignatius ; ^^ an album, in which we enter the names of all illustrious travellers who visit us." ** Call it what you plaze, Lady D." said Sir Ignatius, with a wry face, and withdrawing his foot from the pressure of hers. '* Well, Sir Frederick, as I am after telling THE PRINCESS. 241 you, the diyel of such rollicking times ever we seen in Kerry, since : — ^and it wasn^t ould Sneyd the wine-merchant that was the worse of it, any how ! Would you believe it, Sir Frederick, I paid Sneyd, that year, fifteen hundred pounds for port and claret ; to say nothing of the whish- key (parliament and poteen) ! Well, God be with the times, when a Lord Lieutenant of Ire- land was not ashamed to prefer a sup of hot, the true native mountain-dew, 'bove all the wish- wash that ever came across says !'''' *' Do you know the Duncannons, or the Dorsets, or the Devonshires, Sir Frederick?'*'* interrupted Lady Dogherty in great concision, and with much abruptness. ^^ I hope they ar/B all well ? I had the honour of dancing with the Duke at a ball at Lismore ; and he did me the honour of calling on me the day after.^ « Tell Sir Frederick, Kitty dear,'' said Sir Ignatius, chuckling, ^' about your mother's tumbling down stairs to recaive his Grace ; and her broken nose ! and the brown paper steeped in spurrits, and she -smelling of whishkey like blazes ! She'^U make you die laughing. Sir Fre- derick ; "^pon my daffy she will !'" VOL. I. M 242 THE PRINCESS. Fegim tfaiofit his handkerchief into his mouth. Lady Doghertj wsib ready to onk. '^Sir Ignatius, how can you suppose that Sir Frederick would be amused, with such nonsense !^ ^^ Nonsense, woman 1 why it was the ftm of the world, and was fit to put in a book r re* piled Sir Ignatius : ^' and I ""m sure ! ..... ^ ''' 1 hope you are fond of reading,^'' interrupted the Lady Dogherty, endeavouring to draw off Sir Frederick's attention firom h^ husband. '' If we can be of any use to you in that way, pray command us. Sir Ignatius has bought a very pretty ambulating bibliotheque de vcg^e.' It was selected by our friend the Doctor h^e, who, as you see. Sir Frederick, is a very book-worm.''' The Doctor rose, closed his book, and replied laughingly — " Not a worm. Lady Dogherty ; anything but that. The fact is, I read run- ning;' ^' And galloping too,^ said Sir Ignatius. ^^ I'll ride and read the Doctor gainst any man in England, be he who he may.'' ^' Life is short, and art long," said Doctor de Burgo, shrugging. THE PRINCESS. 248 " And time,'' said Sir Frederick dryly, '^ is the capital of talent, and should not be suffered to lie idle a moment.'' The Doctor bowed ; Lady Dogherty flirted her large green fan, and smiled ; and Sir Igna- tins yawned with all the sonorous vociferation of * a voice from St. Helena ;' while Fegan, touch- ing his bat, made the sign of the cross over Sir Ignatius's 'capacious mouth' — a manoeuvre of devotion against the entrance of the unclean spirit usual on sudi occasions among the lower Irish. At that moment a lady^ accompanied by a female attendant, and followed by a foreign diasseur, passed before the party, and attracted their attention : they too caught her's ; for she held her glass to her eye with a pertinadty of notice more marked than well-bred ; which drew from Lady Dogherty the observation that " it was certainly some one who knew them." The lady was simply and gravely dressed in a black pelisse and bonnet ; yet her air was ^stinguished, and her walk perfection. '* Devilish nice foot and ankle !" said the Doc- tor, looking after her ; ^' steps out like a race- horse ! She certainly does know us, Lady D." M 2 244 THE PRINCESS. " Can it be our friend of Brighton, the Am- bassadress ?'*'' asked Lady Dogherty; or dear Lady Anastasia^s cousin, the Duchess?'" " Why, thin, don't you know who it is ?*" asked Sir Ignatius. ^^ DonH you renumber the Don Whiskerandos there, that follies her? Sure, isn't it the Princess, — the German Princess we met at the opera, who sat in one of her own carriages all night, on board the packet ? What 's this they call her ?'" " The Princess of Schaffenhausen ! to be sure, so it is !*" said the Doctor ; " the least dumpy German woman, by the bye, I ever«aw. That's a capital idea of Byron's; I hate a dumpy woman ! Do you know the Princess, Sir Fre- derick ? If so, may I beg an introduction ?" Sir Frederick replied in the negative, and then abruptly bowed and took his leave ; while Fegan, touching his hat to his new protectors and compatriots as he passed them, followed his master. The party looked surprised at the suddenness of Sir Frederick's adieu ; and Sir Ignatius ex- claimed — " I say, Doctor, did ever you see such a Don THE PRINCESS. Mo » as that, with his snuff-the-moon look ? Would any one think, now, that it was my shirt he'^s gallivanting away in — ^my fine new, bahy-linen- warehouse best shirt, never worn since washed ; or that it's your new black silk stiffner he'^s philandering off with, and my lad}'*s white French tamboored cambric podket-handkerchief peeping out of his pockut ? — ^and not as much as ' Thank ye,' or * I'll see you by and by,' or ' Will you take a glass of any thing?' nor eveii an illusion to it ! Well, 'pon my daisy ! that'« a cool chap ; like the rest of them English quality, who'll take all from we Irish, and divel a word of thanks after ! What did I ever get for the shell-work grotto, framed and glazed, and made by the Ladies of the Ascension, that I gave the Marchioness when she put up at my house? or for the picture of ' Maria and her goat,' worked on white satin by the Ladies of Mercy at Cork convent, that I won at a raffle, and gave to Lady Mary, in regard of the place I expected ? — or what will ever ye get, Kitty Dogherty, by your great friend, Lady Anny Statins Mac Queery, that wore the wheels off our bran new carriage at Brighton, and stifled the life out of 346 THE PRINCESS. . me hj stuffing herself into our little fly eTei^ night ; who made you Mk all her fine firinds to jour party ; who laughed at Lady Dixon, and thin rifused to prisint you at Coorte ! or get you invited, like the Connors and Smiths, to the Queen's balls ?"" *^ She did the next thing to it,"^ said Lady Dogherty ; ^^ she got us her cousin's the Duchess's box at the opera, on that famous Saturday night.'' ^< And if dbe did, divil thank her ! didn't you pay six guineas to Whatrd'ye-call-'um the bookseller for it? and wouldn't woi^er if she went snacks." " There were those, Sir Ignatius, who would have paid fifty guineas for such a distinc^ tion !" " Why, then, greater omadauns they ; and I appale to the Doctor here. Why, then, blood alive ! what's gone with the Doctor ?" Sir Ignatius, during this dialogue, had been watching a lugger through his telescope, as it entered the harbour; and he had not noticed the Doctor's departure, nor the significant whisper of the lady which had instigated it. Passing her arm through her husband's, Lady THE PRINCESS. 247 Dogherty now led the way towards their hotel ; giving him, on the road, one of those lectures on vulgarity, foolish allusions to past times, and similar offences against her notions of propriety, to which the Baronet was more accustomed than submissive. ^r Ignatius was a gentleman *upon com- pulsion,^ though a baronet by descent ; and while his *new honours' had not yet clung to him * by the aid of use,' the habits of his past life and the esrigencies 6( the present frequently placed him in what, in modem political parlance, is called a false position; from which the tact of Lady Dogherty, her admonitions and reprehen- sions, in vain endeavoured to extricate him. Lady Dogherty was * a real gentlewoman bred and bom.' As Miss Kearney, she had flirted through the garrisons of Cork and Kerry during the last twenty years, and having become a charge to her nephew Phineas Kearney, of Fort Kearney, Esq., and finding the officers less flirt- able than formerly, she had submitted to sacri- ficing her refinement, talents, and gentility, to become Lady Dogherty of Shanballymac House (the name of a new unfinished lantern-built square edifice, which stood ' alone in its glory,' 248 THE PRINCESS. in the midst of a black bog, near the village of Shanballymac). This mansion had been intended by ^ Ig- natius as the Tusculum of his learned leisure, where he meant to pass the residue of his days in sauntering to the town of Shanballjmac, drinking whisky-punch, attending the Mallow races, and occasionally, ^ in the glimpses of the moon,^ revisiting the Stages Horns, — a firm in which, if he was not a sleeping partner, he was at least an interested admirer and habitual frequenter. But if man proposes, woman disposes. The second year of their marriage had already commenced, and Sir Ignatius had not yet seated himself in his mansion. He had passed a month in Dublin during ^ the Castle season,** two at Kingstown, three at Bath, four at Cheltenham, and three at Brighton, where Lady Dogherty had been sent by the physicians for her health, which, in spite of appearances, was decreed to be eminently delicate. In this last place she had become acquainted with Dr. de Burgo ; and at his suggestion she was now going to try the waters of Baden : having first secured his medical services on the journey, for THE PRINCESS. 249 a remuneration, of course, utterly inadequate to the value of his immense talents, and the ex- tensive list of patients he was kind enough to abandon for her sake ! Lady Dogherty had hoped much for Sir Igna- tius^s improvement, from the society, conversa- tion, and accomplishments of their clever medi- cal attendant. As yet, however. Dr. de Burgo had treated him with silent indifference; or only noticed his blunders to laugh, and his vulgarities to sneer at him. He had, at once, discovered that Lady Dogherty was chef en second ; and that Sir Ignatius was accessible, if need were, through his love of a ' sup of hot,' and his fear of the cholera. These motives were sufficient levers for the Doctor to act upon ; and with the power of indulgence, privation, and terror which they gave him over his patient, they enabled him to see his way, without giving himself any farther trouble in managing, for his own pur- poses, his employer — so long as it might be necessary to take the trouble of managing him at all. To abbreviate this interval and hasten his future rise in professional life, he had now left M 5 250 THE PRINCESS. his party, and followed and sought ^ F. Mot- tram with the design of doing away, as he best might, the impressions which he felt the low breeding and coarse ynlgarity of his Irish pa* tient must have produced on the English gen- tleman. Doctor de Bnrgo was a specimen of a pecn* liar genus not rare among the medical tribe. His savoirfatre far exceeded his savoir. He was, in fact, a mere impersonation of char- latanism in its most striking, though not in its coai*8est characteristics. Rapid in percep- tion, quidc in adaptation; seeing at a glance the weaknesses of others, skilful in concealing his own ; gifted to amuse, but prompt to injure ; he was morally, as professionally, more b^it upon watching the effect he was producing, than delicate as to the means by which it was produced. Urged by the resdess energies of an implacable vanity to seek, and even to ^ command success,^ his vengeance against all that crossed him, even accidentally, in his path, was enduring and implacable. Without any of those sterner principles which might have im- peded the march of one of more elevated sen- THE PRINCESS. ^61 timents, he found no difficulty in mastering the feeblenesses of all classes: but while, with fieeming frankness, he blinded his dupes, he employed them perseveringly to serve himself and to crush his rivals. In the pursuit of emi- nence, he coimted more upon mental than bodily infirmities; and taking in turn the colour of every prejudice, he was amusing with the idle, cant- ing with the pious, politic with the factious, and (Sentimental with the imaginative. By an adroit display, also, of professional technicalities, that rarely committed itself to a fact or an opinion, and by a ready complaisance to wishes intui- tively divined, he passed on the superficial for saperskilfiil, and on the feeble for more than kind. Thus gifted, had his lot been cast in a great metropolis, he might have early become the oracle of a court, the dispenser of ether and opium, gossip and scandal, to dowager royalties and gentlewomen in waiting; and would have reached that envied round in the professional ladder, which gives in substantial profit all that it refuses in personal respectability and profes- sional esteem. As yet, however, fortune had 252 THE PRINCESS. not been favourable to the exploitation of these qnalitiefl ; and wanting the opportunity for in- troduction into the higher walks of society, he considered himself fortunate in having capti* vated the attention and confidence of Lady Dogherty, whose landau and livery-servants had established to his perfect satisfaction the fact of her command of wealth. Sir Frederick Mottram had gained the strand beneath the ramparts, and was pursuing his way with a slow, measured pace, so absorbed as to be almost unconscious that the evening tide was advancing on his path and breaking at his feet, when Dr. de Burgo overtook him (it might have been thought) more by chance than by predetermination. He touched his hat to one whose reception was anything but encou- raging, and addressed him with a careless fami- liarity, founded possibly on a previous resolve not to be rebutted. '^A charming retreat this. Sir Frederick^ from the ramparts ; that type of Margate, and all such horrors, with its tea-and-mu£Sin-shop. Good Ain though, sometimes, with its snobs and originals ; but there, is no escaping the feli- THE PRINCESS. 253 city-hunting .and most obtrusive subjects of his Britannic Majesty, anywhere, * from Indus to the Pole,' as the poet says.'** " It w difficult,'' said Sir Frederick coldly, and looking on his watch. " Oh, impossible !" said the Doctor, either not feeling or not noticing the retort. " But I am glad to see you, sir, consulting the oracle, keeping your eye on the enemy. To a consti- tution like yours. Sir Frederick, time is every- thing. Had I the honour of prescribing for you, I should be more anxious to regulate your hours than your diet; and to prescribe regu- lar periods for air and exercise, rather than drugs." Sir Frederick smiled, and threw his eyes upon the speaker, whose countenance had the sharpness, the quickness, and the malice of a monkey's. The Doctor was, as usual, looking for a weakness, an absurdity, an opening, in short, through which to attack the great man with whoioi he had become accidentally acquainted, and whom he had already fore- doomed to be a stepping-stone on which he should mount to professional, social, or any 254 THE PRINCESS. other sapremacj; for his Tanity had no pre- dilections, and his ductility was applicable to everything. ^^ You think I am an invalid ?^ said Sir Fre- derick, almost diverted from the disagreeable thoughts of the last ten minutes, conjured up through the irritating associations connected with the appearance of the travelling Princess. " No,'^ said the Doctor, " not that ; not a valetudinarian ; but you have the true intellect tual temperament. You pay the penalty of a superior organization, in common with the Ro« millies, the Byrons, and all that are wisest, wittiest, and best.'' Sir Frederick stifled a sigh, and slightly bowed. ^^ It is curious enpugh to consider the human reptile— -or god — in aU its varieties, from its earliest organization to its most perfect develop- ment ! You are aware, I suppose, that man is originally a tadpole ?'' • " No, indeed !'' said Sir Frederick, smiling : ^^ I was not aware of that humiliating fact.'' " 'Tis all true, though. We are all reptiles at out origin." THE PRINCESS. 255 ft ^^ And some oontinne so to the end,^^ said Sir Frederick laughingly. ** Just that, by Jove ! The whole is a pretty humbug ; and yet— ahem r He turned his sharp eyes to search for an exptessioii in his compamon's faxje, by which he might discover whether his cue was to be the dogged orthodoxy of the church^and-state tory, the philosophy of the materialist, or the scepticism of the man of the world. Sir Fre- derick looked grave, as one of the Oxford school, and moreover a considerable lay-impro- priator, should do. "And yet,'' continued the Doctor, " *a nughty maze, but not without a plan,' as Pope says : while it bewilders the philosopher, it teaches the Christian a mistrust of his own blindness. In short, as the infidel Voltaire observes, this best of all possible worlds is — — However, one cannot doubt, that ^ whatever is, is right ;^ call it fate, necessity, or Providence. Your opinion, I dare say, Sir Frederick ?" " Not exactly," said Sir Frederick, with whom, at that moment, all that was^ was wrong. ''At all events, it is unavailing, and some« 256 THE PRINCESS. times perilouB, to drop tbe lead too deeply. The fools will always have the best of it.^ *' Not always,'"* replied Sir Frederick ; " the rogues come in for their share.'' " Humph ! Why, yes ! — Oh ! by the bye. Sir Frederick, you must have been amused by that specimen of a wild Iridiman, my yery new friend (for I only saw him for the first time a day or two back), Sir Ignatius Dorty, or Dog- erty, or Dogberry. Circumstances of a very delicate nature, entre nous -— in short, a foolish, but devilish pretty girl, mistook my professional interest for — you may conceive: but let that pass, as Scott has it. The girl must die all the same ; but, in the mean time, you know, I thought it a good plan to travel, that is, till my friends the Tories come in: for I have the solemn promise of a friend to do something for me in the King's medical household, as soon as the blow-up comes; and things cannot go on much longer on the present Whig tack. So I accepted Lady Dogherty's proposal to accompany her abroad ; not, indeed, so much in considerar tion of the very liberal sum I am to receive, as because her case is singular and important. THE PRINCESS. 257 I am writing on the subject: She is really an interesting person, and as celebrated as the Biondina in gondoletta of Venice ; for she is the Biondina of the lakes of Killamey, the original of the Kate Kearney, sung by Mrs. Waylett — charming little creature, Mrs.Way- lett ! But, with a thousand good and amiable qualities, poor Lady Dogherty is a little quiz- zical, a little too blue.'" " A little too red, I should say,'' observed Sir Frederick. " She looks like a moving ple- thora."" " She is dying,'' said the Doctor, gravely ; " but not of that." " Dying !" said Sir Frederick, smiling like Cassius, as one who * mocked himself, and scorned his spirit, that could be moved to smile at anything.'" *' Yes, actually dying — ^though slowly. She has lost a lung." " A what !" asked Sir Frederick. " A lung," replied the Doctor. " She was poitrinaire from her cradle ; neglected, or im- properly treated; fell into the hands of a Dublin doctor, or rather surgeon, of the old 258 THE PRINCESS. fldiool; a dogged 'operator, a fellow with the physiology of a hatcher. The truth stared me in the face. I saw it, as if she lay before me on a dissecting table. Well, she was given over; sent to Cheltenham, to die out of the way; came to Brighton ; fell into my hands ; and here she is. I can^t give her a Inng ; but if I can get her to live on and enjoy life without one . . . .^ ^^ It wOl be a miracle ; though, really she seems, as it is, to enjoy life and its good things to admiration.^^ " Yes,, yes ; I see ; the redness in her face. It brightens her eyes, and whitens her teeth : all disease, all symptomatic. You are going to drink the waters at Aix4arChapelle, I pre- sume, Sir Frederick ? But, if I might obtrude a travelling opinion, I should say, ' Try Baden.'' • Allow me : just turn your eyes to the light. Ay, I see ; overworked, — that malady of minds, that * o'erinform their tenement of clay.' So try Baden ; but don't try the German phy- sicians : German metaphysics, as much as you will. You have read Kant, of course— a floorer to the mat^alists. I admire Kant, as much as THE PRINCESS. ZS9 that diyine woman, Madame de Stael. I am for the spiritual, to the verj verge of illnaion.^ Sir Frederick stifled a sigh. " If you will allow me, Til send you a little analysis of Kanfs system, when we get to Brus- sels. You stop at Brussels ?"' " Yes, merely to await my carriage.'*' " The only thing you will now find worth staying for there. The revolution is a regular humbug; but what can you expect from the ^ canaux^ canards^ canailltay as Rousseau calls the braves Beiges.'''* ^^ I thought it had been Voltaire, who said it of the Dutch?'' " Oh, ay ! — all the same, you know ; the same population, all Dutch^and. I go by phy- siology. There is a link between man and the monkey; that is too curious! I speak as an anatomist ! I don't mean as to the soul ! * The tital spark of heavenly flame !' A noble line that, worthy of a Christian writer ! But Adrian, like Seneca, almost anticipated the moral of Revelation." By this time the interlocutors had arrived in the town, and were traversing the Place 260 THE PRINCESS. dTArmes, when the chasseur of the Princess of SchajBTenhausen came forth tram a little book* shop. Doctor de Burgo looked earnestly after the man ; and Sir Frederick, whether he was desirous of getting rid of his intrusive com- panion, or really wanted to make some purchase, touched his hat, and entered the library. After turning over several of the provoking but pleasant contrafactions of the Melini press, he asked for a Guide-book — "something — any- thing — ^he didn'^t care what — ^about the country*" The man of the shop had nothing of the kind left. The immense flocks of English that had arrived by the last few packets had carried off all the Guides. He had sold the last of them to that English gentleman who was walking there with the chasseur of the Princess of Schaffenhau- sen. She had just sent her chasseur to procure one; but he had it not to give him. It was unlucky, for the Princess started early the next morning : at least, so the chasseur thought. Sir Frederick gave out that ftdl and deep respiration which proceeds from the bosom which is suddenly reUeved from some heavy weight. Still he continued to pore over the THE PRINCESS. 261 books on the counter, till he lighted on a ^ His- tory of the Low Countries' by Mr. G rattan, and some other local works, which he bought and ordered to his hotel. This he thought would be pdture for the time which he should have to remain at Ostend ; and after spending some additional time in wan- dering about the silent and empty streets of this once stirring and populous town, he returned, not to take ' his ease at his inn,' but to indulge in the solitude of its dreary and old-fashioned apartment. 262 THE PRINCESS. CHAPTER VIII. THE BLESSE. Amono the many metaphysical refinements for which philosophy stands indebted to the Germans, there is none more luminous, and at the same time more sound, than their distinc- tion between subjective and objective reality. The aspect of external nature borrows so much of its character, not only from the tempera- ment and disposition, but from the caprices of feeling and passion, of the beholder, that the evidence of the senses scarcely suffices to con- vince us of the identity of certain objects, when revisited under a change of fortunes or of moods. It is thus that Paris may be rendered joyless and melancholy as its own Place de Greve ; and that Ostend, of ill-omened noto- riety for its monotony and duln&ss, may be- THE PRINCGSS. 268 come enjoyable to those to whopi it prores fux abrupt and refreshing transition. In all the changes and chances of human life, there were few more striking and sudden than that which Sir Frederick Mottram had passed in arriving at the Belgian shores. The spoiled, child of fortune, the ' English epicure,^ the man made up of party views, local habits, and conventional principles, was now paying the penalty of his ignorance of all that constitutes the sad reality of a ' work-a-day world ;' and was suffering some of the more painful consequences to which vice, folly, misfortune, or poverty, ha- bitually expose the great mass of society'^s less favoured children. Plying from evils which had worn out his patience, he had fallen upon others which hitherto ' he knew not of ;^ and in escaping from the vexations and annoyances incidental to the highest positions in the social sphere, he tasted, though but for the moment, of those incidental almost to the lowest. Deprived of conveniences which were to him a second nature, of luxuries which he deemed necessaries; without money or credit; unknown, suspected^ distrusted, he had escaped by a mere 264 THE PRINCESS. accident from the ridicule of being sent back to England as a branded runaway, the victim of illiberal international laws which he had him- self contributed to perpetuate : and for this escape he was indebted, in unredeemable obli- gation, to persons whose vulgarity shocked him, and whose probable future acquaintance might be troublesome, obtrusive, and ridiculous. Still, (the greater embarrassments of his new position having been overcome,) it was not with- out its charm. To have merely escaped from the scenes of disquietude which he had fled, — • to have exchanged the turmoil of political dissension and domestic jars for the solitude and tranquillity of Ostend, — would have done less to tranquillize his irritability, and restore the tone of his distempered mind, than this sudden plunge into pecuniary and personal dif- ficulties, so new and so whimsical. His atten- tion had been distracted : a new train of ideas had been forced upon him ; he had been oc- cupied, thrown upon the ways and means of chance; the past had been violently and abruptly dissociated from the present; and under this revulsion of ideas and habits, the old THE PRINCESS. 265 Flemish and once prosperous sea-port afforded objects of curiosity and interest, that gradually seized upon his imagination, and rendered him even cheerfiiUy submissive to a species of exile and detention, to which so many English volup- tuaries are condemned, in the small retired towns of the French and Flemish coasts. The ascertainment of his rank and fortune, in procuring him that attention and credit which are never reftised to the possessors of such distinc- tions, left few recollections of the recent mis- adventure beyond those which belonged to its whimsicality and exciting novelty. The energy of his intellect, too, was something restored by the rallying of his bodily health ; and in giving himself up to his new situation^ and exploring the resources of the place, he had stumbled upon .one of those obscure, neglected curiosity shops, so frequent in the Flemish toT^Tis, where he purchased some old chronicles relating to the early history of the Low Countries, which, smell- ing of the terrain^ awakened a new and deep interest for its stormy story. While waiting for letters from England, he had nothing to do but to read and write; and he VOL. I. N 266 THE PRINCESS. did both on the sea-shore, eDJoying the breath and beams of heaven to a luxurious excess. He almost constantly occupied the Pavtllan des BainSf and was occasionally amused at the novel combinations that heal afforded. It was under feelings so new (though not un- connected with the earliest associations of his life), that he resumed his correspondence with Horace Harvey, between whom and himself, though the world had rushed, nature had woven links never to be wholly dissevered. The same intellectual temperaments, differently directed ; the same sensibility to all that is beautiful in nature and in art, prevailing in both, had pro- duced, between the moderate tory and the epicu- rean liberal, a sympathy in sentiment and taste, which no divergence of pohtical or abstract opi- nions could diminish, or wholly interrupt. In the existing isolation of his heart and circum- stances, the desire to communicate the impres- sions he was receiving, and to seek for sym- pathy in his new views, was becoming almost a physical want ; and the necessity of dispos-. ing of a certain quantity of surplus leisure, not improbably improved this feeling into an impulse THE PRINCESS. 267 to again address his friend, after the lapse of four days from his previous letter. ^^ TO HOBACE HARVEY, ESQ. *' Pavilion des Bains, Ostend, " DsAB Horace, — I write principally to re- lieve you from the apprehension of Iny being taken up for a vagabond, and sent back to England. Well ! I am restored to the ranks of the honest and the trust- worthy, owing to the interference of the Irish family I mentioned in my last. Such originals i and yet persons of rank, wealth, and boundless hospitality. From their own showing, at least, they have received half the aristocracy of England at their old castle, somewhere on the road to Killamey. Imagine their having expended fifteen hundred pounds on wine in one year, when they enter- tained the Lord Lieutenant of the time being ! The old Milesian is vulgar to the eztremest verge of Irish vulgarity. His lady, all preten^ sion and bku ; and then the traveUing phydidan, who is Irish too ! He, however, puzzles me. He is obtrusive, familiar, and of true Irish assurance; but he is a devilidi clever fellow, very amusing, 268 THE PRINCESS. and extremely quick in his professional views. In a short walk, he threw out some very odd observations ; and made a better guess at my disease, than any of the big-wigs I consulted in London. " I was very near having the honour of the whole party's society ; but that they have joined the travelling suite, of who, for a ducat ? Why, my bite notVf , the Princess of Schaffen- hausen. *' On the evening of my arrival here, as I sat on the ramparts enclavi between Sir Ignatius and my lady, the identical Princess passed us, veiled and muffled as usual, and pointing her impertinent glass full upon us. *^ Can you imagine the absurd coincidence of our sailing in the same packet ! Her apparition at my house in London had been among the causes of drawing me from it ; and here' she is, or rather was; since she left Ostend the next morning, with the Dogherties in her train. What an inexpli- cable creature ! what energies ! what physical as well as moral force ! There are traits in her character, or rather her conduct, which some- times remind me of Christine of Sweden-^-a great \ THE PRINCESS* 269, creature, though a perverted one ! But what is her object— r what her pursuit P Yet, of what consequence is this to me ? Her association with such creatures as the Dogherties, however, is very amusing. ' '* I have had a note from the Doctor, by the bye, to apologize for not offering me a seat in their carriage to Brussels. ' We have been sud- denly induced to join the party of her Highness the Princess of Schafienhausen, and start early to-morrow, he says ; ' but we shall be happy to renew our acquaintance, and receive the honour of your commands at the ' Hotel de Bellevue ; &c. &c/ ** So I am quitte pour la peur. What a people these Irish are ! While I was writing, the last line, I overheard a fine-looking fellow, standing at the door of the Pavilion, say to a pretty Flemish fruit-girl, * Vous Stes belle^ MaVselle^'' — * JVb», Monsieur^ je we suis quejolie C was the reply. But the com-' pliment was so often repeated, that I rose to see who was the pertinacious cavalier. To my infinite surprise, I discovered it to be Lawrence Fegan, my Irish JbmMe, whose blunders have t70 THE PRINCESS. plm^ped me into so manj diflknlties, from which I am not yet qaite extricated. ^^His actual appearance^ compared with the im- preision he had made upon me at Carlton-terrace, set identity at defiance. He had availed himself of the order I had giv^i for a enit of livery, to baniib all that was tigrish in his groom^s frock ; and the first French tailor of Ostend has pro- duced a dress on the dandy modd of the Doc- tor's dijroqutj so that little more than the colour of my Uvery remained. ^^ To my exclamation of ^ Fegan, is that you ?^ he answered, with a flourishing Flemish bow, ^ It is, of coorse, Sir Frederick.'* He coloured deeply as I threw my eye over his clothes, and added, ^ I ax your pardon, sir; if my new coat isnH entirely of the livery out, it is the fault of Mounseer the taiUeur, And in regard of being your honor's own groom and vally, I have sworn upon the holy and blessed altar of the iglise of Nother Dame, not to let a drop of naked spirits pass my lips till I get back to Ireland, be that same short or long : and am after endea^ vouring to pick up a word of Frinch, to make myself useful, by buying strawberries from the THE PRINCESS. 271 young Ma^m'^selles of the pleece, and reading the signs over the shop^doors, sir/ I give yoii this speech verbatim; but his look and accent are beyond the reach of art. '^ AH this time the fair vrow stood smiling and curtseying ; While Fegan, with the straw- berries in one hand and his hat in the other, was really not at all unlike his patron the Doctor. His quickaess, improvabiUty, and humour, have vanquished me ! I ordered him to pay the young woman for her &uit; and left him count* ing out the change for a franc, and murmuring his ' Vous ites belle ; which, I suspect, constitutes the whole ^f his present vocabulary. He ap- pears to be honest, willing, alert, and> an excel- lent groom ; and though I shall probably want but little of his services in that capacity, I shall bear with him, and pick up at Brussels something between a courier and a valet, to complete my travelling suite. ^^ But whither am I to travel ? I dare not yet turn my thoughts towards Carlton-terrace ; and ' de die in dienC must be my motto until some motive starts up to steer or fix me. Mean- time, I read and saunter away my time, in your 272 THE PRINCESS, ^ own pococurante way ; and have already made an acquaintance with some of the natives that rather interests me in the Belgian Revolution : hitherto, I confess, the object of my indi£Perence, at the least. I had been more than disgusted by its drawling and unsatisfactory details of in- conclusive negotiations ; having watched its pro- gress and protocols, through the spectacles of the Holy Alliance, and under some certain social prejudices, for which, perhaps, our London cote- ries are answerable. " One of my approaches to the ramparts (where I actually live) is by a rope-walk, where an old maitre fabriquant de cordage pre- sents such a perfect figure of one of Tenier^s drSles, that I bought some pencils and drawing- card for the purpose of sketching him, (the first time I have taken up a pencil, by the bye, for eight years.) He saw what I was about, and lest he should be offended, I scratched in a bit of a ruined building, and asked him the name of the place. He looked at it, and sighed. ' Ah, Seigneur Dieu !' he observed in excellent French, * there is nothing now in this town worth making a picture of — ^it is a ruin. Some THE princess; 273 thirty years ago, there were still some fine things to be seen in it ; but the blocus continental of the Emperor Napoleon gave the coup de grace to the prosperity of Ostend ; and then, to make bad worse, we were given over to the Jting of the Dutch ; and it was his cursed Dutch gunpowder that exploded in 1826, and completed our misfortunes. The government magazine, to be sure, went up along with it ; that was some comfort; but the town was nearly reduced to ruins. The earthquake was felt at Brussels. The explosion took its course along the. shore. The Haze-gras^ the finest place in Flanders, became a heap of rubbish ; and had not Notre Dame d'^Ostende watched over us, our ancient city would have been the tomb of its inhabitants.^ " ' Apparemment^ I said, as we walked on together towards the ramparts, ' monsieur nest pas OrangisteT " ' Cfymment^ monsieur /** he replied, ^je suis Belge^ moi, — Saquer P * 'f At that moment we overtook a young man, with death stamped on his pale but handsome * The Flemish pronunciation of sacre. n5 274 THE PRINCESS. face. He was leaning on the arm of a young girl dressed in the Flemish costume, and was supported by a crutch. He wore a blue linen blouse, with red worsted epaulettes ; and his little casquet was ornamented with the Belgian tri-coloured cockade (red, yellow, and black), worn with something of a military smartness. ^^ ^ It is one of our Blessh^ said the old man, taking off his cap, and saluting him re- spectfully. Bonjour^ man brave ! comment va la sante f " ' Pas mal^'* said the young man, with a faint smile, as he seated himself on a stone bench. " The girl opened a little basket, presented him some biscuits and fruit, and laid a flask of wine and a horn cup beside him. After a short dialogue in Flemish, animated by a smile which could not be mistaken, she kissed her hand and turned away. I took my place beside the poor invalid, whose appearance affected me. I made some idle remarks on the sea air, and its salu- brity to an invalid. " * (Test un de hos Blesses^ repeated the old man, folding his arms upon his breast, and look<- ing with pride on the young sufferer, * He is THE PRINCESS* 275 a hero of the 26th of September, our great and glorious revolution.** "'Did the revQlution of Brussels reach to Ostend ?' I asked. " ' Reach it V repeated the old man indignantly : ' par exeniple ! we did not wait for that ; we met it more than half-way — rCest-ee pas^ mon brave f" " ' Je crois bien P said the BlessS^ either re- stored by the wine he had supped, or kindling at recollections which had their influence over his life — nay, his death! for his hectic cheek arid flashing eye spoke of rapid dissolution. " *jffc can tell you something of our revolution, sir,*" said the old man. ' You English gentlemen beUeve nothing, know nothing about us, I have talked to many of them on the ramparts, and ihey were all alike ignorant on the subject. £A, mcfn Dien ! that poor lad there, who was mitrailU by the Dutch, was the first to plant the Belgian flag on our town. He can tell you better than I, whether we had a taste of the revolution of Brussels, or no.' " I felt that I had shocked the self-love of the patriotism of Ostend, and hastened to acknow* ledge my ignorance and to desire information; 276 THE princess; The young patriot seemed flattered, and proud of the reference. After a little hesitation, a clearing of the voice, and a summing up of spirits, he almost burst forth, " * The cry of liberty, monsieur, had re- sounded through Bel^um. It found no tardy echo in Flanders ; for if nous autres Flamanda are less explosive than the brave Liegois, we vere not less sensible of our grieyances. Our hatred of the Dutch was of long date. We had already had our political revolts, and blood had been spilt ; the people of Ostend and its arrondissements having been irritated by the conduct of the Dutch commandant de place. " ' Bien^ monsieur; it was on the evening of the £6th of September, about six o'^clock, (/ ought to remember it. Monsieur Ernest, for I had come to make preparations for my marriage,) that the firing from Bruges was heard at Ostend. The people rose instantly ; ill-armed indeed, but with the Belgian colours at their head, and with the brave Jean de Bataille^ an ex-officer of marine, to lead them. We directed our steps to the Grande Place, and the guard was dis- armed in a moment. The troops flew to retake THE PRINCESS, 277 the post ; a feu de peloton killed nine of ou]? bourgeois; and I had the honour to receive wounds, of which I am yet not quite cured ! " ' On the 27th, the troops of Bruges retreated on Ostend ; and on the ^th, the popular move^ ment recommenced, with more violence than ever. It was then that the Belgian soldiers separated from the Dutch, and joined the bour- geois. On the 30th, the troops capitulated; and surrendering the town to the Belgian mili* tary and the town- folk, sailed on the same. day for Flushing. " ' Our example,' continued the young Blessi^ ' was not followed, but met by the towns of the neighbourhood. Each made its own little tc- volution. Fumes, Nieuport, Ypres, Dixmude, Courtrai, and the major part of the communes of the plat paysy had scarcely more than to dis- arm the marSchaussee ; and by the 8rd of Octo- ber, in the space of eight days, the Belgian flag floated on the belfries of all our villages, to the very verge of Flanders. CTitait une belle revolu- tion que la notre P '' Nothing could be more animating than the countenance of the old man during this detail ; 278 THE PRINCESS. and his * Voili P ' Pardie P * Je le croia hien P *Vayez donc^ numsteur P formed an amusing run- ning commentary upon the text. We were still at our ^ belle revdutiwC when the pretty ^anc^e returned, for she was evidently the bride of the interrupted espousals. She reproved the Bleasi for having talked too muoh, and drew him away; but not before I had apologized for a curiosity which might prove injurious to him, ^nd obtained and taken down his address. — The young man slowly crawled away, supported by his mistress, " The old rope-maker sighed, as he followed them, with eyes Ml of compassion. *" She will soon be spared this trouble, pauvre petite P he said. ^ Every time I see him, Jean is a step nearer to his grave V " ' She is of course his mistress ?' I said. " * She was his Jiancie^ monsieur ; and was to have been married, when the revolution broke out. Jean was a poor lad, but of respectable parentage, and one of the best workmen in the hat-manufactory at Thourout. Marie is the daughter of a garde-champitre. His cottage stands in the forest of Wynendale. She was THE PRINCESS. 279 sent here to learn to make lace ; and eyerything was settled for the nnptials^ when the 26th of September arrived* He has told jou the rest except that her father is an Orangeist, and will not now hear of their miion. " It is astonishing how much this little ro-^ mance has interested me. I intend to look to these poor people, and try whether better me-^ dical adyice cannot be procured to save the yonng patriot from his impending fate. ''That / should become interested in the Belgian revolntion, and at Ostend !--^a partisan, too, on the wrong side ! But the animated nar- rative of the unfortunate Jean, his youthful mis- tress, and her Orange father, have worked on my imagination ; and this domestic episode has really excited a feeling concerning the poUtical drama itself, not quite consonant with my habi- tual views of the subject. It is strange how a phrase — a word giving a tint, a colour, to events •'— operates this species of enchantment on the coolest auditors. The forest of Wynendale ! Ypres, Courtrai) names associated with the glorious wars of our own revolution. Even the ^nous autres Flamands* of honest Jean identifying 280 THE PRINCESS. the speaker with a national sentiment, wins one for a moment to an affection for his cause, and a belief in the possible permanency of its suc- cess, at variance with all preconceived opinion. " Modem story makes but little part of our school and university education ; and though one reads afterwards to a particular point, still there are few Englishmen sufficiently acquainted with the history of these countries, to feel their enthusiasm kindle at aught that concerns the present destinies of its people. Sometimes in- deed, when one has *' to rise'* upon a question of Lord Palmerston^s protocols, or the treaty of 1815, and has to get up a hit for the debate, one sends to Murray for the newest and shortest book on the matter; but, the purpose served, the facts are forgotten. " Since my arrival here I have been reading an old black-letter chronicle of the Low Coun- tries, called La Chrontque de Nangis^ which I picked up here, and which, as well as Meyer's history of Flanders, has all the interest of a romance. To that circumstance, probably, the story of the young Blessi is indebted for a portion of the seduction it has exercised on me. You y THE PRINCESS. 28i must first warm to a people by their antece- "P. S. — The packet is in. A letter from Harris'^s head clerk incloses me the sum I wrote for ; but he waits the return of his chtf front Mottram Hall, to proceed with the rest of my commission, instead of sending me my letter of credit at once. This is pleasant ; for I have already expended a good part of the money he has sent me. Was there ever such an accumu-* lation of bores ! . The exigente Princess, more- over, has carried off all the post-horses left by the travelling hordes of English ; so I start by the treckschuyt at two o'clock, where I shall be huddled in with other specimens of the ani- mal creation, male and female, as in Noah's ark. But, at this moment, I really am so steeped in * tender sympathies' for others, that my own annoyances sit lightly on me. ^' I went an hour ago to see my poor Blesse. I found his humble dwelling in the upper story of an old edifice which probably escaped the siege by Spinola ; for nothing was ever so an- tique or dilapidated. t82 THE PRINCESS. ^* The chamber. No. S, au second, was easily found: no door was dosed against the in- truder. As I approached, a figure in black, who appeared just to have left the apartment, drew up in the narrow passage to let me pass. I think it was a female ; but the picture within occupied all my attention. On a sort of truckle bed lay the extenuated form of poor Jean. The few hours which had elapsed smce we parted had made great ravages, and he was in the very agony of death, though scarcely paler than I had seen him the day before. His little cap with its tri-coloured cockade was placed beside him ; and a priest was praying before a temporary altar at the head of the bed. Poor Marie, half prostrate on the floor, knelt, with her face buried in the counterpane ; while the bluff old rope- maker knelt too, and was in the act of prayer. He caught a glimpse, however, of my figure as I receded from the door, unwilling to disturb the solemn scene ; and he followed me out. I had my purse in my hand ; and as if in reply to my presumed intention, he said, " * You are very kind, monsieur ; but a good religious woman, une bonne et charitable divote. THE PRINCESS. S83 has already proyided for the wants of the in- valid. But poor Jean has now no more wants !^ " And Marie ?' I said. " ^ Marie has her parents and her own in- dustry to support her ; and though from k com- patriot and a bonfie Beige there is no degrada- tion in the Blessh receiving assistance, yet from a stranger and the native of another land it is different. I thank you, however, in behalf of my countryman for your kindly intention — vous Stes im brave monsieur P — and he shook my hand rather roughly. ^' Mine host of the hotel has come for my English letters, to renew his apologies for having taken me for a suspicious character, and to announce the departure of the treck- 8chuyt, "Let me hear from you at Brussels; and so farewell. " F. Ur 284 THE PRINCESS. CHAPTER IX. THE TRECKSCHUYT. On board the treckschuyt which pursuei^ its daily voyage between Ostend and Bruges, was assembled one of those travelling congresses of European nations, which are to be found in every public vehicle supplied by enterprise ta the itinerant wants of the most itinerant gene- ration that the world has yet produced. Sir Frederick Mottram, accustomed to select his own hours for travelling, and to make ^ panting time toir after him, was now panting to over- take time, and was all but too late for the punc- tuality of the Flemish boat. Lawrence Fegan however had preceded his master, and was stand- ing, Colossus-like, with ^ one foot at sea and f other on shore,' and swearing in good round Irish at the conducteur, for presuming to cast off ' the canal-boat,' or let the driver mount ^ the garan,' before the arrival of Sir Frederick, THE PRINCESS, 285 whose rank and titles he announced with a pom* posity by no means borne out by the two carpet- bags which contained their united baggage. Every EngUsh eye was turned upon the * Right Honourable,' as he stepped in. The fiiss that was made by Fegan excited amuse* ment in some, and curiosity in all. Shy, near- sighted, and preoccupied, Sir Frederick stum- bled into a seat on the first bench that presented itself ; and putting up his glass, perceived that there was on board but one English carriage, and a small, dark, foreign calash, without arms. A group of Englishmen, collected at one end of the boat, had all directed their eyes to him ; and a party of genuine Flemish figures in the other were making observations in their native dia- lect, of which he was painfully conscious that he was the object. Equally irritated by the obvious absurdity of Fegan'^s flourishing manner, and by his own impatience, in not waiting another day at Os- tend, when no princely demand oh its posting capabilities would have interfered with his own wishes of travelling in the indulgence of com- plete privacy ; his first impulse was to take 286 THE PRINCESS. up a book which lay beside him, and, by bury- ing himself in its pages, to escape farther ob- servation. The seat which he occupied had been recently left by a female wrapped in the all-involving black cloak and hood of Flemish costume, so prevalent even to the gates of Brussels. Perceiving her place and book in the possession of the embarrassed stranger, she courteously left them at his discretion ; and joining a female companion, (as muf- fled as herself,) at the farther end of the boat, she entered into conversation with a young Italian exile, who was on his way to that asylum of the expatriated worth of all nations, the capital of Belgium. The book thus abandoned was the * Prigu onV of Silvio Pellico ; and in the fly-leaf was written, in pencil, the following apostrophe, the probable efiusion of expatriated sympathy, for sufferings recounted with deeper pathos than the Lament of Tasso, if not with all the bitter spirit of the indignant Dante. It caught the eye and interested the attention of Sir Frederick :— ^^ Italy ! magnificent Italy ! region of splen- did creations, where Nature reigns preeminent THE PRINCES& 28T in the midst of her sublimity and her loyeliness— ^ where Art, by the supremacy of genius, moyes proudly in her track, reproducing her forms, embodying her inspirations ! Italy ! with all your physical attributes, with all your historical recollections, why is it that a veil of sadness, like a film of crape, hangs for ever on your beauty ? Why does insecurity press upon the heart of the stranger who comes to worship on your shores ? Why, in referring to days passed in your elysian rales among your mighty monu- ments, is your name still breathed with sighs, still uttered with a tear ? " It is, that, buried in their living tombs, lie incarcerated the flower of your sons ; that your blue skies brighten not their dungeons ; that your balmy airs bring no health to their withered breasts ! It is, that Despotism and Bigotry stand watchAil and suspicious to note the look, record the word, and denounce the spirit, that breathes of their iniquities : it is, that in Italy there is no personal security; that images of fraud and violence multiply on every side; that cells again open for their dupes, and scaffolds rise for their victims ! 288 THE PRINCESS. Nations of Europe, which of yoa l\aTe done this? — England ! free England ! Yon, who open charitable bazaars for distressed foreigners, from which you exclude the Italian exile and the Polish refiigee ! — France! revolutionizing, but not yet revolutionized France *", The fragment liere broke off. PeUico, whose book now for the first time fell into the hands of Sir Frederick (for party in England reads only its own literature) — PeDico was his old acquaintance. He had known him in Milan in 1820, in the house of his illustrious friend Count Porro. Both Pellico and himself were, then, in the prime of early youth. Frederick Mottram, not yet of age, was returning by the north of Italy from his diplomatic residence in the English embassy at Vienna; and he had joined a ' harlequin set' of Whig and Tory exclusives, the future autocrats of Crockford'^s and queens of Almack^ who then nightly con- gregated in the Scala, and lounged daily on the Corso, in the splendid capital of Lombardy. Such as they were, ' a mingled web of good and ill together,** they had, in the previous year, received into their magic circle of London THE PRINCESS* 289 fashion, a flush of young Italian nobles, of the liberal sect, and bred in the scientific schools of the iron-crowned King of Italy, on whom they bestowed all that attention which rank and wealth never fail to obtain from English society. Never did Italy send forth more splendid specimens of her superior population, than in the persons of the young Counts Confa- lonieri, Capponi, Velo, and others, whose histo- rical names recall the gre^t days of Italian grandeur and independence. In gratitude for this reception into the ' world of EngUsh ton,' then all-powerful, the noblesse of Milan, the most enlightened of Italy, opened their marble palaces, their villas, their galleries, and their opera-boxes, to their English firiends and quon- dam hosts. Amongst those who best did the honours of Lombardy, were the Counts Confalonieri and Porro ; and it was in a garden-room belonging to the classical Casa Porro^ that Frederick Mottram, the young English Tory of London, the Italian Liberal of Milan, was wont to seek the author of ' Francisca da Rimini,** the editor of the * Conciliatore,' the most accom- VOL. I. o 290 THE PRINCESS. plished and inspired of modem Italian poets. The two young men were united by the common sympathy of taste, passion, and gentle natures. Frederick Mottram stood indebted to Pellico for his first taste for Italian literature ; and when he was recalled by his ambitious father to represent a rotten borough, on his reaching majority, and to marry the daughter of a pauper duke, he had proposed to his Italian friend that he should accompany him to the land of freedom ; for so he called the England of the Holy Alliance. Unfortunately, Pellico conceived that he had sacred duties to perform by his own country, which prevented his visiting other lands; and he deferred the promised visit till— Italy should be free ! From that moment when, hand clasped in hand, they stood at the edge of the gondola on the banks of the Lake of Como, whence Sir F. Mottram had taken his departure from Italy, thirteen years had elapsed. In the eventftd interval, Pellico had, like so many other of his countrymen, passed the golden prime of his youth in an Austrian dun- geon. And how had the British statesman THE PRINCESS. 291 passed that mterval, so big with misery to mil- lions ? As a private man, he had passed it in all the ' pomp and circumstance/ in all the ease and luxury, of English aristocratic habits ; as a public man^ in riveting the chains and deepening the dungeon of his Italian friends, by truckling to foreign despotism, and guarding the avenues of domestic abuse from the innovations of timely, temperate, inevitable reform. It was in the treckschuyt of Ostend that this idea flashed on his imagination for the first time. He closed the book, and laying it down beside him, gave himself up to deep thoughts and sad recollections. He had passed his hand over his eyes, and his ears were shut to the jargon of many tongues which was uttering around him, when he was aroused from his reverie, the most profound and novel he had ever indulged in, by somebody plumping down on the seat beside him. '' Beg pardon, sir,'' said a rough cockney voice, " but a seat is a seat here : crowded as a Margate hoy on a Saturday. Pretty flattish country this here, sir; just like the Hessex coast. Howsomdever, anything 's better than Hostend ! I paid as much for a pint of port- o2 ^2 THE PRINCESS. wine there as jon M get a bottle of mideirer for in Lonnon. Porter, too, a shilling a bottle ! pretty himposition ! A poor plaoe that Hos- tend as ever I see in my voyage through life ;— nothing to Ramsgate, though I canH bring my younkers there to think so.^ He pointed to a flashy girl and gawky boy who were seated together on an opposite bench. The former was dressed after 'Ackermann^s Fashions for May,^ and sat sentimentally, with a book open in her hand ; the latter was empty- ing a large cabbage-leaf of its load of^currants, with which he had smeared his lubberly face, while a cargo of Ostend gingerbread peeped from his coat-pocket. " La I pa, you are so prejudiced,*'' said the young lady, her eyes fully directed to the figure of the Englishman of fashion ; for such she had pronounced him to her brother, who had an- swered to the remark — *' What's that to me ?'** " Margate,**' she continued, " is becoming so shocking vulgar, and there is something so very foreign in Hostend ! Pray, sir,'' addressing Sir Frederick, '^ how for may it be from Hos- tend to Haix-la-Chapelle T' THE PRINCESS. 293 " As far as from the first of Haugast to the foot of Westminster-bridge,'''' said the father. " Why, what does it signify, Susan ? I tell you I von't stop at that there place, by no means. I don^t mean to stop no where till I leave Bill at school at Idleburgh. Are you going as far as Idleburgh, sir ?^ " No, sir,''^ said Sir Frederick, measuring the interlocutor with the look of one unused to such coarse contact. " Well, sir, by all accounts^ you might do worser. I am argoing to put this here tall boy to school there; where he will be hedicated, fed, and clothed for two years, for less than I pay for six months at Charter-house for my son James. But James is the boldest; aiid his mother will have him sent to college, and made a gentleman of, and a lawyer. This here boy is argoing into a great Hinglish brewery at Lige, as is kept by a cousin of mine ; and he, you see, must get a parlez-vous hedication and learn Jarman ; and so he is going to Idleburgh.^^ " The young gentleman,^ said Sir Frederick, insensibly amused, *' will, I dare say, have no objection.'*^ 394 THE PRINCESS. " Not he, sir. All he wants is plenty to heat and drink, and time to play. My nevy, sir, Tom Tyler — my name is Tyler, sir ; you may hare heard of our house, the Tylers of Milk-street, well known in the city: an old house now ! ^ " Very,^ said Sir Frederick, irresistibly smiling, '' and one not unknown to history. I take it for granted you are a descendant from Wat Tyler?"' *' No, sir, no ! My father's name, sir, was Job; I'm not ashamed to own it, sir: the first of our family. He began life an errand- boy to a draper in Holburn, and died head of the business. I am proud on't; though I dare say, sir, you know some would be ashamed to own their &ther was poor and industrious, and wotked up their way in the world!"— ^ Sir Frederick felt his blood mount to his fhce, and threw round a furtive glance at the Eng^ lish passengers. *' Well, sir, as I was saying, my neyy, who is rider to Mr. Cockrell at Lige, (I mean to stop a day at the iron-works as we comes back ; but business fiist, you know,) — ^my nevy wrote to me about a famous spa ; and it 's by r THE PRINCESS. 296 Tomb's advice that I^m argoing to look arter an highland in the Rhine, sir, the highland of Nun'^s Wart, which I have some idear of pnr- chasing." " Nonnenswerth, pa," interrupted the young lady. " Tom,'' continued Mr. Tyler, " recommends us to buy up the whole highland, and make a sort of a Beulah Spa of it ; — ^great speculation, that. Hire a gipsy in Norwood, if there a^nt none in these here foreign parts; but them chaps are everywhere — ^vagrants, sir, vagrants. Still, sir, the public must be* served, as my father used to say of blue printed linens, when the bird's eye pattern came into fashion. A bad harticle, my father used to say ; but the public must be served in its own way. Now, sir, gipsies are bad harticles ; but as I hear 'tis the Hinglish chiefly frequents the river Rhine, set in case I likes the thing, and completes the speculation, they shall have a gipsy and asses in plenty to suit their tastes." ** And what may be the object of your spe- culation ? you are going a great way for it," said Sir Frederick, beginning to enjoy Mr. Tyler's communicativeness. 296 THE PRINCESS. " Why, sir, you see, money ^s a drag now-a- days. Chie can get ten thousand in the city now eaaer than our &thers could borrow a guinea; and seeing that all our advertising papers are full of the Rhine, and that all our folk in the city are beginning to give up Mar- gate for the Rhine, I writes to my nevy, he being in foreign parts, to find out what might be done there ; and so, sir, he recommends me to come and look arter this highland of Nunsworth, where there is a sort of a Hinglish hotel or board- ing-ouse already. Besides, my nevy says, we may have a box of our hown on the highland, for half what my wife pays for a lodging for three weeks at Brighton when the royal fsimily^s there ; and get from Lonnon more cheap and in half the time we goes to Arrowgate. Well, I wish we were at— what d'ye call the highland, Susan ; for I'*m rick of travelling already.*" *' The island of Nonnenswerth, pa — a most beautiful and romantic spot,'' recited Miss Susan, turning to Sir Frederick. ** It is the subject of a sweet poem in a forthcoming work, as the journal of Ton says." " Sweet my eye," said Mr. Tyler, winking at Sir Frederick. " Poems f nonsense ! Get THE PRINCESS. 297 » doctor to puff it for the wholesomes ; and that will fill the boarding-ouse, and get you a smart husband, mayhap ; and then, I suppose, I must come down ' with a slice of our own little highland; '^ " The island of Nonnenswerth,'' continued Miss Tyler, addressing Sir Frederick, and blushing at her father^s vulgarity, " is sitivated in the. midst of the Rhine, close to the castle of Rolandseck. It was built by Roland the ne- phew of Charlemagne, to be near his beautiAil mistress, who was a nun in a convent in the island which pa is about to purchase/^ " Ay, ay ! never mind that : we'll give ''em a Roland for their Oliver, and briug over a -Lonnon harchitect to build the spa-ouse after the pattern of Beulah. A Hinglish hotel is worth aU the old papist nunneries in Chris- tendom ! I hate the papists, sir-— that's the truth on't; would like to hexterminate them root and branch from the face of the world. See what theVie been a-doing in Hireland ! Why, sir, one of the reasons why I wouldn't vote for Obhouse, (though the family deals at our ouse,) is because he was a catholic hemancipator." o5 298 THE PRINCESS. During this confidential dialogue. Sir Fre- derick^s attention had turned to a little band of musicians, consisting of a harp, Tiolin, and violoncello, which usually accompanies the boat ; and Miss Susan Tyler, with more observation than her father, perceiving the circumstance, abruptly changed the conversation. '^ What a charming hoperer we have had this season, sir ! You admire Italian music, I per- ceive. Do you remember Paster and Rubini in that charming duet ^ iTeibracciar Argyrtor?'"'" '' It's ail humbug !'' said the father. '' Costs the nation a power, and ruins the morals of our wives and darters. Nobody in the city went to hoperers in my J^ung days ! Never was there in my life, — rather hear Hirish Johnson, or Charley Dignum, poor feUows ! than all die Squa^ linis in the world. Chariey always sang ^ Bknt^ bloWy thou wint€r*8 wind^'* when his own night ws8 eHSoming, because there was summut in it about ^ btlKfits forgot^"* ha ! ha I ha ! Droll chap that ! always took tickets and a firont row in the second boxes for his benefit ; always sung his best song for our Company dinners."' " La ! pa, how you do talk ! There was THE PRINCESS* 299 never no English music worth earing, except Miss Paton as was, in ^ Hartaxerxes.^ Did you ever ear Miss Paton sing * F/y, soft hidears^ Sir Frederick, with an irrepressible smile, answered in the negative ; atfd amused up to the point of possible amusability, in his actuid state of tenq>er, by the demonstrative cpmmu» nications of these stranger * Pilgrims of the Rhine,^ he left the daughter and father dis- puting on the respective merits of Charley Dig^ num and Miss Paton, and went forward to listen to the j^easant music of the little band, which recalled, in the airs they performed, some im- pressions of his early boyish travels. " The woman was singing with more taste than science, to the accompaniment of her harp, the Frendi melody ^ Loin iu chalet. "* The Italian exile was murmuring a aotto voce second, and repeated with much energy the refrain ^ Oh nia pairie.'* The cloaked and hooded Flamande was drawing, on a card which rested on the. volume of Pellico'^s ^ Prigioni ;* and her companion was talking to Pegan in broken EngUsh. The group was pictur6S<|ue, from the contrasted 800 THE PRINCESS. yariety of the figures, faces, and costumes that icomposed it. Meantime, the swampy banks of the canal near Ostend had been gradually exchanged for scenes of more broken and woody outline ; the country rising into highly cultivated ridges on either side. As Bruges was approached, rural prosperity and beauty became more strik- ing. Snug cottages and substantial farm- houses, deeply coloured, as in a Dutch pic- ture, peeped through trees, and presented images of comfort and ease which, throughout even this, the flattest part of Belgium, amply compensate for the absence of the more striking features of mountain countries. On some spots the hay was still making, and sent forth its perftime on the air; and wherever man appear- ed, his firesh colour and decent garb betokened the fvi\ suppliance of the first wants of life. A little further on, the treckschuyt drew up for a moment near a garden gate of an ex- tremely neat campagne, and took in two gentle- men. They swept the decks with their hats; and their low bows were returned by salutes from the Flemish party in the boat with equal THE PRINCESS. 301 courtesy. One of the strangers took his place with his face turned towards the town, and his hat drawn down to shelter him from the oblique rays of the sun : he was of the middle age, Flemish-built, AiU and comely. His companion was a young man of a lively and interesting appearance, and might have belonged to any country. Their conversation was carried on in French, which, by its context, revealed that they were evidently inhabitants of Bruges or its neighbourhood, and were returning at that early hour from a dinner-party, at the villa of a friend, to the town. There was something in all this, that re- called the social habits and rational hours of the middle classes of England of older times, almost refreshing to one blasS by the enfeebling and corrupting usages of his own class and day ; and Sir Frederick, after an effort in his own shyness and reserve, was tempted to seek an opening to intercourse by asking the period at which the canal from Bruges to Ostend had been cut. The two Flemish gentlemen turned round, and, bowing as Flemings only bow, seemed eager to reply. 802 THE PKINCESS. ^' It was constructed,^ said the elder of the two, <^ in 1618, and is a little monument of what even a transient peace of twelve years can effect, — a pause during that sanguinary period of European history, in the seyenteenth century. You remember, doubtless, sir, the truce BO long desii^d between Holland, Spain, England, and France P"^ Sir Frederick nodded an equivocal assent, and endeavoured to ^ rub up^ his recent read- ings. " Yes,'" said the young man ; " it was a treve de DieUy to give the despots of Europe time to breathe, and think of new modes of oppression and violence. A pretty set they were ! Your Jaines the First, monsieur, BsJse to his allies, like a true Stuart ! Louis the Thirteenth, or rather his unnister Richelieu; Maurice of Nassau, who Vas mystifying the Dutch, and planning the mur- der of that glorious patriot Olden Bameveldt; and Philip the Third, of Spain, the worthy success sor of the m